Month Selection in the Drill To Screen

Harry Sun

Hi BOARD Team,

I created a drill to screen If I double click Jan.24 column in the graph, then it will take me to a new screen with the same selection.

In the new screen, it will only show Jan.24 which is the same month as I drilled through.

But I want to show two month before and two month after Jan.24 to provide some contexts. I am thinking of using procedure to achieve this. Let a procedure to run when this screen opened, then extend the current months selection to -2 months and +2 months. While all the other selections will remain.

Could you please let me know how can I achieve that?

Thanks

Helmut Heimann

Hi @Harry Sun ,

you will probably not be able to use the drill-to screen there because that would set just one month (and that goes for the target screen as well). So, you'd need to set the month-range you want to use on your target screen (-2..target..+2). Since you don't want your current screen selection to be overriden: you'll need a procedure instead of the drill-to.

That procedure would extract the currently selected month and calculate the other months you want to see in the range and then call the target screen (keeping the rest of the current selection and applying the target range).

The calculation will have to be done in an ETL that reloads the currently selected month.

Remember that all of this has to be done in a user-context so that users don't overwite each other's selection during the extract-reload action.

The calculation has to take into account as well that there might be a change of year during the selected time range (suppose your currently selected month is Jan.25, then you will have Nov.24..Mar.25 as your target range); so the calculation will be a challenge.

If the currently selected month will be more or less specified (i.e. always the current month or the prior month) you could use a mapping that would be set up and maintained in an admin screen where the target range could be specified.

If that's not the case and the currently selected month could be any month, the calculation won't be easy.

Steps would be

1. Extract the currently selected month to a text file with @user.
2. Reload that file and apply the calculation logic to the datareader's ETL.
3. Call the target screen with applied selection.

Best,
Helmut

Helmut Heimann

Hi @Harry Sun ,

you could use both approaches, but I'd prefer the first one. The second one wouldn't allow for the current selections to be applied to the target screen.

So, it could be somethinglike this

Best,
Helmut

Harry Sun

Thanks a lot Helmut. It is too advanced for me. I thought I just ask and it could be an easy solution when I create the procedure. But it is good to know the proper solution.

I think I ask our users to do it manually. I will give them the Month selector. They select what periods they would like to see. Thanks a lot for your explanation.

Helmut Heimann

Hi @Harry Sun ,

that, of course, would be the easiest way—and understandable for the users.

You could provide an interactive selection for the month in a procedure and then call the target screen with selections applied.

Best,
Helmut

Harry Sun

Hi Helmut,

Thanks for this alternative solution. Could you please help to clarify a bit further?

Do you mean I link the drill down to a procedure, then in the procedure I provide an interactive selection first, then use this procedure to navigate to the new screens?

Or I still drill to the new screen, but run an interactive selection for month while opening the screen to get the selection?

Thanks a lot

Harry Sun

Perfect. Thanks a lot.