I am planning on creating a table for my users to be able to maintain the threshold values for use in the condition syling of various reports. Has anyone done this before and willing to offer some tips on how to do it?

What I was envisioning was each condition having a code, low/high range, and textual description of what color they want. Within the report it would for each condition go out to the table, get the low/high range and compare it to the value.

Sounds like it would work on paper, but I'm having difficulties figuring out how to actually make it work in WF. If the best recommendation is to manually have the values embedded in the reports, I'll live with that also.

Thanks!

rob

WebFOCUS 7.6.2 SQL Server

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rfosnaugh,

Rob,

How are you prompting your end users for input to the report (if at all) ... Your own launch pages or Auto Prompting?

You can easily prompt for a low and high value and then incorporate them into your code as necessary.

T

Thanks for the reply. I am doing HTML launch pages. I am wanting to have a way that the business owner of that report sets the thresholds for the conditional formatting and then lets say in 3 months they have now found that they should be adjusted, goes somewhere (SQL server table or whatever) makes the change and now the new thresholds take effect without any developer touching it.

I think where I'm having a little difficulty right now is that I'm not doing it in the MRE side of things. If it is done over there, can the business owner modify thresholds in the report design? Can they modify it if I developed the report in Dev Studio?

We are new to WF and BI so we aren't rushing into the managed reporting area and in effect the general business users aren't licensed for MRE so they will be using canned reports (which I am working on in Applications on the Data Server right now), which is what we will need the conditional styling on to begin with. My knowledge on MRE and if that's where we should be right away is very minimal, so if I can do everything in MRE without the business users needing a license I'd appreciate it if someone shed some light on that for me. We have licenses for power users, but want to get some groundwork down before taking that leap.

Thanks!

rob

It doesn't make a difference if you are doing it in MRE or Dev Studio. What you want to do is add parameters to you HTML launch page to allow the users to select their own HIGH, LOW, MEDIUM ranges. Then you code the amphere variables into your style sheet instead of hard coding the ranges. Hope this helps.

Rob,

To enable the end user to store the thresholds in a data repository somewhere, you would have to create a front end that will display the values and allow the end user to update them.

You could achieve this using ASP or, as I have done many a time, you could create a focexec that creates a HTMLFORM that issues MODIFY code from JavaScript. Both methods update using a server side process. However, as I always mention, if you cannot create the code on your own abilities your chances of supporting it, if or when it goes wrong, are slim and you would be better off using an alternate process.

Do you have the ODBC connector licensed? If so then you could always give them an Excel workbook with a named range that substitutes for your data repository - most end users are familiar with Excel so it is sometimes easier. I would recommend sufficient validation of entered data within the VBA code of the workbook, just to ensure no unforeseen entries

T

Thanks for the replies. I created a Lotus Notes database to do the maintenance, pushing the data to SQL Server, and it is working well. I do app development, ETL, and all WF work, so supporting it is not an issue. The fun part is now that they have seen the light they are talking about putting thresholds on individuals, not just common categories. I think I may have to slow them down a bit on that thought...

Thanks!

rob