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deleted_user
Not applicable
Hi!

I am working on WRS 3.1, and my reports have filter prompts requiring the user to select the report dates to be displayed (please see attachment). The values in the "Available values" are sorted in descending order, and the Default value in the "Selected values" is the maximum report date.

However, when the client would de-select the values from the right ("Selected values"), the de-selected report-date will be appended on the left window ("Available values"). They want the values to have a consistent sorting, like in the case of my report, the values SHOULD ALWAYS be in descending order. Has anybody here tried adding a sorting action when selecting/de-selecting values in the prompt? Can you guys please teach me how?

Thanks
7 REPLIES 7
Jenn2
SAS Employee
Murf,
I am checking on one thing for you but our first instinct is that we don't think it's possible in v3.1. Let me get back to you on this. Anyone else know?
deleted_user
Not applicable
Hi Jenn2,

Thanks for looking into this problem. I tried checking on available tools in wrs, and I think there is no option to customize the sorting on the user-prompt... I am now thinking if we can adjust some settings in the back-end. I just don't know how 😞
AngelaHall
SAS Employee
Murf,
I agree with Jenn that this is likely not an option in the 3.1 version.

A couple of workarounds?
1. Use the Minimum Date as the Default?
2. Save the report with no date selected, for others to then use?

(I've been using WRS 4.2 exclusively this year ~ just tried to test the 2nd suggestion in a 3.1 environment but having trouble getting the ol' system back up 'n running for this test.)

Angela Hall
Zencos Consulting
http://www.zencos.com
deleted_user
Not applicable
Hi Angela!

Thanks for your suggestions. The reason for setting a default value, and choosing the maximum date as the default value is for convenience. Users usually look at reports that are most recent.

Actually, aside from the default value and sorting of available values, one user requirement is also to limit the number of selection in the "Selected values" window. I managed to set that by using a stored process and integrate that with my information map. The initial sorting (descending) and setting of the default value is updated by running some codes to update the parameter properties in the metadata of the stored process.

The activity of selecting and de-selecting the values are the items that I need to address... like, what if user changed his/her mind with his/her selection? Again, having a consistent sorting all throughout the process of choosing the parameter leads to the goal of providing the business users a more convenient way of finding things in the selection box.

BTW, I am curious, in WRS 4.2, are values in the prompt always sorted or is it still behaving the same? I haven't tried WRS 4.2 yet 🙂 But back to 3.1, I noticed that the "Filter and Rank" option inside the report (under the "Edit table options") is consistently sorted in ascending order (and there's no option to set it in descending order)
AngelaHall
SAS Employee
The activity of selecting and unselecting values in 3.1 would require a refresh which I dont think is designed by default into that version.

The prompts in WRS 4.2 are much different. When using timestamp or date formats, the prompts are geared toward dates and date ranges rather than item selections.

For instance on a date time field, I added a prompt with a default value of current hour. When in WRS - I see a drop down box for different selections - such as prior hour, current minute, n minutes ago, etc. There is also a calendar icon that I can select a specific date to use.

When creating a date range prompt this filter operates almost the same way, but then you create two prompts for beginning & end selections.

Angela Hall
Zencos Consulting
http://www.zencos.com
Jenn2
SAS Employee
Murf,
Is this something that you need to be able to do often? If so, I'd like to talk to you further about this problem. Perhaps several other people have the same problem and we need to address it. Can you give me some detailsr (e.g., how often this is a problem, whether Angelas work arounds helped out, etc.)? Also, if you are a reader and you have experienced the same thing, please tell me about it by posting to this thread.
deleted_user
Not applicable
Hi Jenn,
So far, I just got this request from this particular client. You can say that they are very picky. For now, I have to add the filter to 22 reports. In the future, maybe they will implement pre-filtering the data first before generating the actual report so that the response time will be faster, especially when the volume of data expands.

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