Additional Report Types

The most common report type in Drillbridge is the "JDBC report type" – that is, a report that is configured around the idea of a Drillbridge-parameterized SQL query that is built using the current Drillbridge tokens and drilled POV to create a SQL query that is then executed against a database (JDBC) and the results are returned to the user.

In addition to this common report type, Drillbridge provides other report types built around the same general concept. The second most common report type after the JDBC one is the "Forwarding Link" report type.

The basic premise behind the Forwarding Link report type is that instead of generating a SQL query to execute against a database, Drillbridge instead generates a link that the user is redirected to. For example, instead of SQL SELECT, the "query" in the Forwarding Link report will generally start with https:// – an example query might be the following:

https://www.google.com/query={{#Period}}

In the above example, the Drillbridge "query" has a single Drillbridge token (corresponding to the drilled value from the Period dimension), which would then be placed into the link and then the user would be redirected to this link.

The above example uses the Drillbridge "short token" format. This simple format represents a token with no additional options and that will simply be replaced by the drilled value. In this case, if the user drills on the January member from the Period dimension, then the token will simply be replaced with January. In this example, a simple Google search would be performed with the current member from the Period dimension.

Options

HTTP Method

By default, the links generated by your Drillbridge link template (query) will be redirected to using an HTTP GET. This is somewhat similar to what happens if you type in the URL in your web browser and hit enter. The system you are drilling to may require an HTTP POST, however, in which case, you should set your method here to POST.

Show Submit Button

By default, when using the HTTP POST method, the redirect/post sequence will happen instantaneously (you may see a very brief "Redirecting…​" message). If you want to make it so the user must explicitly click on a button before the HTTP POST happens, you can enable this option. This is usually false.

Always Use Form Submission

Using POST for your method type always use a hidden form element, but not for GET. If you want to force a <form> element to be used for GET methods, then turn this on. This will usually be false.

Form Window Handling

When a form is being used, determines if the link is opened in a new window, the root of the current window (e.g. replaces the EPM Cloud interface when using Redwood Experience), or a default setting (some links may not work when using Redwood Experience due to security issues).

Debug Mode

Instead of generating the link and redirecting/posting to it, just generate the link and display it.

Advanced POST link generation/payload handling

You may need to build a report that will perform a POST to a particular URL using Drillbridge tokens, but then also POST additional parameters in the payload. For example, you want to a link to POST to such as the following:

https://example.com/reports/report/{COST_CENTER}

In addition to POSTing to the given URL based on one of the POV tokens, the POST should also contain additional parameters from that POV that are processed by Drillbridge, such as the Period and Year. Drillbridge allows you to handle this by letting you tokenize the URL as normal, but then add additional lines to the report definition containing the values to POST.

For example, your report definition may look like the following:

https://example.com/reports/report/{{#Cost_Center}}

Period={{#Period}}
Year={{#Year}}

For simplicity the preceding example again uses "short" tokens but a fully defined token including options such as drillToBottom is allowed. In this example, the link (technically, the action of a <form> element), will be generated using the given Drillbridge template, and then the additional parameters Period and Year will be added to the request.

The Forwarding Link report will only ever use the very first line of the template for the link. All other lines will be considered as additional parameters on the POST operation. Blank lines, lines starting with -- and lines starting with # will be ignored, so you may use them however you wish in order to make the query more readable or to add in-line documentation.