Hello all,

I have a fex that is feeding values to a SQL Server stored procedure. One of these values in a global variable which contains the user id of the person logged in. That all works beautifully. The problem is happening in Report Caster. When I attempt to email a report or send it to the library, I get an error stating that there is no value for this variable (called &&DCI_USERMR). No matter what I try - creating a define with the GETUSER function and associating the define field with the stored procedure parameter, etc. - I get the same error in Report Caster.

I need one of two things. 1) I need to know how to get Report Caster to recognize the global variable value from the fex, or 2) I need to know how I can embed the value of the global variable in the HTML launch page form I have created in HTML Composer. I have found documentation on 2, but it is bare bones, and need an actual block of HTML code as an example.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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

If you are setting the value of that WebFOCUS Variable from logic put under "Custom Settings" in the WebFOCUS Client; as you can tell that logic is not available to ReportCaster.

You can tell what variables are available to ReportCaster by writing a report with the following content:
-? &

And scheduling it to run. After it runs, you will find in the log for the job all of the variables listed that are set. Its possible that ReportCaster has the equivalent variable of whatever variable you're using to set this value in site.wfs.

You can also look into the "Pre-processing" Fexes under "Advanced" in a ReportCaster Schedule to help setup the variables you need for ReportCaster.

As always, if there is any functionality that you wish ReportCaster had, or there is a way you think it would work better, feel free to open a case with TechSupport and request a New Feature.

When is the global variable set? In a system profile? As you may know, a ReportCaster schedule requires a "Run As" id which can be either a unique user id, or a global/admin id (one id runs all jobs.) In either case this is set at the time the task is created. So it does not go looking for any system variable of that type (because it already know them) and any other variables must be already specified by default or explicitly (under the Advanced button) or through a pre-processing step, as dlogan describes. My guess is that you will need one of these pre-processing steps in you task to set the variables you are looking for. If you can give us an idea of where the &&DCI_USERMR variable gets populated, maybe we can help out more.

Yours is a very good example of how differently things get processed in regular WF as opposed to ReportCaster. Other differences are probably too many to list, so don't get frustrated by the fact that it works in Wf, but not in RC.

Thanks to both of you for your input.

@Darin: The &&DCI_USERMR is set in the Custom Settings, as dlogan mentioned. This makes it available to all of the procedures we're creating. We were excited about this, as the stored procedures require the user id to be passed for a variety of reasons. Now, we know that this breaks reportcaster, which was one of the "bells and whistles" features which were used to sell this product to the higher-ups here. So, without reportcaster, WebFOCUS just becomes another report writer, which is sad and, yes, frustrating.

I have a quick-and-dirty workaround, if anyone is interested. I've tested a way of creating a sort of "dummy" SQL view - grabbing top 1 * of a very small table - and I can create a synonym for this. In the master file I will create a define that uses &&DCI_USERMR as it's value. I'll then use a hidden field on the launch page and populate this field with the define as the value passed back to the amper variable for the user id parameter on the fex side. Tested and working in all submission scenarios. But, as I said, quick and dirty. It's my "back pocket" last resort if I cannot figure out a more...elegant way.

Anyway, thanks for your input. If anyone else has a better solution, please feel free to respond. We have our initial promotion of our WebFOCUS-based reporting tool on September 30, so if nothing new comes up, it'll be time to reach in my back pocket.

Is the userid you're trying to grab the same as the users Managed Reporting userid, or the same as their Reporting Server userid?

If that's the case, you should find those variables within the example I gave you with the -? &.

Where are presently grabbing the value of &&DCI_USERMR from?

JRenner,

I believe the &&DCI_USERMR is set via the Administration console in site.wfs? If so, try copying that file onto the server under DRIVE://ibi/srv76/wfs/etc/site.wfs
or DRIVE://ibi/srv76/home/etc/site.wfs, one of those, I "think".

You may have to use &IBIC_user or &REMOTE_USER.

When you run jobs from ReportCaster, usually, just one ID is used/hard-coded, i.e., WebFOCUS as an ID.

Are the users submitting jobs to ReportCaster, or, is this for Deferred job submission?

Tom,
The only reason those variables would make it to the Reporting Server to have values would be if site.wfs logic passed them to the Reporting Server.
Since the ReportCaster doesn't process site.wfs, REMOTE_USER and IBIC_user are not going to be available.

Now the equivalent of IBIC_user can be grabbed since the server has the connection id, but its not going to be in the variable IBIC_user.

Hi dlogan,

OK, Thanks. I was under the assumption that RC just accesses the Reporting Server? Is that correct?

We always hard-code the ID for RC jobs, as Darin stated, so, I thought that the site.wfs would be invoked there, as well...

@dlogan - I have actually tried both user ids, to no avail. The &&DCI_USERMR is grabbing &IBIMR_user and passing it back globally. I know we could do the same thing by using a define in the fex and the GETUSER function for &IBIMR_user, but I have tried both and neither works, so...

@Tom - I tried doing what you suggested, and unfortunately it didn't work in reportcaster. To answer your question, the users are submitting the jobs via an HTML launch page which, of course, contains a button hyperlinked to reportcaster.

Oh, and @dlogan, when I do a check of available variables on reportcaster, I get two I don't recognize, but that my user id gets passed to: &DSTOWNER and &DSTEDAUSER...I'm assuming that these two refer to Developer Studio and Developer Studio Edaserve, respectively. Is this a correct assumtion?

DS stands for "Distribution Server".

DSTOWNER should be the owner of the schedule, DSTEDAUSR is the user used to connect to the Reporting Server.

I think you'll find that DSTOWNER has the value in it you want if you're looking at using IBIMR_user.

I can run some tests in a little bit to verify.