User Parameters

The headline feature in this release of Drillbridge is support for the new "User Parameters" feature. This feature is configured on a per-report basis and provides a mechanism to prompt the drill-through user for additional input before executing the report. The values that the user provides are accessible as with any other variable in the final Drillbridge query syntax (in addition to their original drill-through POV). The user parameters feature is useful when you want your query to use additional detail/parameters that aren’t present in the dimensionality of the source system being drilled from.

A report can have an arbitrary number of user parameters associated with it. Each parameter has the following options available to configure:

  • Name — defines the name of the parameter. This is shown to the user on the user parameter input page next to the input area.

  • Description — description of the parameter. Shown to the user as the "help text" below the user parameter input area.

  • Variable name — the variable that will be tied to the user’s input in the Drillbridge query. For example, if prompting the user for a particular account, the variable name might be "Account", and usable in your Drillbridge expressions as the #Account variable.

  • Input type — choose from a textbox input type or a drop-down selector. Another option is "textbox with auto-complete" which is a normal textbox input with auto-complete enabled, which will use the text or SQL query in the "possible values" definition.

  • Preset value — a value to pre-fill or pre-select for the user, depending on the input type. Textboxes will be pre-filled with this value and drop-downs will pre-select it.

  • Optional — whether the parameter is optional or not. If using textbox input, the user will not be required to enter a value. If using a drop-down, then one of the valid options for the user will be "nothing".

  • Default value — if the user parameter is optional and no value is specified, you may specify a default value (you may also elect to just handle null/empty values in your SQL/query, which should be more or less the same).

  • Secure input — if using a textbox to input parameters, its input will be masked (as with a password input box).

  • Possible values/query definition — You may define a list of values to place into the drop-down or to serve as auto-complete suggestions. You may also define a Drillbridge query that returns values to be used.

  • Connection — If the "possible values" specification is a Drillbridge query, then you must set the SQL connection to use here, otherwise, leave it blank.

Analytic Provider Services support

Support for connecting to Essbase via Analytic Provider Services is now provided. On the Servers editor, define an APS server name or leave it blank to use the default embedded mode.

Download File Name

You can now use a Drillbridge query expression to define the name to use when a user downloads their drill-through results as an Excel or CSV file. By default, the name of the Drillbridge report itself with any spaces replaced by underscores is used as the download file name (appended with .xlsx or .csv as the case may be). The Download File Name option allows for defining a normal Drillbridge expression that can be used to customize the file name to include tokens.

For example, the download file name for a Drillbridge report named "Transaction Detail" may have been "Transaction_Detail.xlsx", but using the download file name feature in conjunction with tokens from the drill-through POV may now result in a download file name such as "Transaction_Details_Jan_2017.xlsx".