VA Hide Control Object in Report?

[jwhite]

VA 7.3

Community, I've got a situation where I'm using some controls as 'hold variables' as it were holding lists of data if need be...which is why I use drop-downs.

The goal is for an individual to freely enter text for a course they're interested in, then the report produces all of the areas of study within the major that the desired course falls under.

Here's a sample source data:

In the example below, a user is interested in Kinesiology courses, but may not recall that major, only that they are currently interested in 'Athletic Training/Trainer'.

The top input box accepts 'Athl', and when they hit 'enter', I use a parameter to basically scan all the 'CIP_Title' values for anything that contains the values from the input box. This works, and to proceed in this example, I've simply confirmed 'Athletic Training/Trainer' in the drop-down.

This first drop-down has an interaction on the second drop-down and is assigned Major as the category, so the value in drop-down 2 is dynamic depending on what is selected in drop-down 1. Drop-down 2 here also passes the Major value out to a major_parameter.

Drop-down 3 then has a filter of Major = Major_Parameter, so its list is all the CIP_Titles that equate to the same major. In this example, we see the three titles we would expect for the major 'Kinesiology'.

The above works fine. A user can input the name of a title they're aware of, then VA uses these drop-down controls to filter the data to output all the other titles within the same major.

However...this is no good for a user. I would like a way for the middle two controls to either be hidden or handled in another manner so they aren't seen. Ideally, a user would have the input box, then the last drop-down list.

Is there a way to do this? Are there 'hidden' data types available to store these dynamic lists in? Can a container 'hide' a control so it isn't accessible to a user, but is to the report? I would even be satisfied if I could 'collapse' the objects enough with the pane sliders as to not be seen in the viewer.

What options am I missing?

Thanks!

-Jeff

[FredrikE]

It's hard to hide them completely...

I usually set size to 0 and all colors to the same as the background.

Also I place them in a corner where my users don't expect things to be places 🙂

I have also tried to hide them behind an object, like a text box or image.

None of these are perfect, but workes ok for me!

//Fredrik