1. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Prepared by Eric Urff of Daytona State College (urff@daytonastate.edu) Presented by Talia Brown of Graceland University (talia.brown@graceland.edu.) Cognos Prompting

2. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Overview Question and Answers in the following areas: What generates a prompt? Building a prompt page Which tables to use for prompting? Specific examples as requested Date Prompting Tips and Tricks

3. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. What Generates a Prompt? Using ?Parameter? In place of a variable in a filter. The parameter is a unique name surrounded by question marks. Example (Before and After): [Student Academic].[Course Work].[Course Work Session Code] = 'FA [Student Academic].[Course Work].[Course Work Session Code] = ?pSess? Suggestions: Use lowercase p in front of prompt name. Just a recommendation for standards so that you can recognize prompts easily. This comes in handy if the prompt is used in other advanced areas for reports. For multiple selection: [Course Work Session Code] in (?pSess?) << The parenthesis are not required for this to work but recommended to keep it there for less confusion.

4. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Automatic Prompt Generation To Use or NOT to Use Recommend to NOT use the automatic prompting unless you have thoroughly adjusted the framework manager. Most of us have NOT. So what to do?? Create PROMPT PAGES and control what and where the data comes from. 4

5. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Building Prompt Pages 1.Hover over Page Explorer area 2.Click on Prompt Pages in Page Explorer Area 3.Drag Page Icon from Insertable Objects over into the Prompt Pages area 4.Double click on your prompt page (this will open up the prompt page area). Tip: Put a table in the prompt area to easily layout your prompts as you move forward. BIGGER Tip : Make a template for others to start from. Saves effort and time.

6. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Prompt Types Top three most widely used Value Prompt – Select from a dropdown list of items to be chosen. Can be set for single or multiple selection. Text Prompt – User enters in a value or text that you wish to be filtered on. Useful for allowing an ID number of a specific student. Date Prompt – Ability to select date via a calendar interface. Also: Select and Search Prompt – Ability to filter down on your selections prior to selecting final values.

7. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Prompt Types - Creation Value Prompts: Use Collections to pre-populate set values (i.e. FA, SP, SU) Use queries to populate the values with what is in tables. Use the Report Studio Prompt Queries when able. These are usually standalone tables that have few records in them so that the lookup is FAST. Filter your prompt queries to limit the data that shows up to what is desired.

8. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Prompt Types Specific Examples Requested Filter academic calendar years to only show previous 2 years and one ahead. [Calendar Year] between year(current_date)-2 and year(current_date)+1 How to select High Schools and show students that attended selected HS.

9. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Default one year ago Default one week ago Default 1 st day of previous month Default Last day of previous month All of the dates are set in the html item that is included on the page Date Prompting Default today

10. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Java Script Dates: Used to pre-populate fields on prompt page function setTextBoxPromptValue(promptName, promptValue) { // *** This function assigns the promptName variable the value that is specified in promptValue *** // var SpotOnTargetControl = G_PM_THIS_.getControlByName(promptName); var SpotOnPCType=SpotOnTargetControl._type_; if(SpotOnPCType == "cognos.Prompt.Control.Text") { SpotOnTargetControl.bParse(promptValue,""); SpotOnTargetControl.setCurrentValue(); SpotOnTargetControl.checkData(); } function dtFormat(inDate, inFormat) { var yyyy = inDate.getYear(); var d=inDate.getDate(); var m = inDate.getMonth()+1; var newformat; var dd = d; var mm = m; if (dd < 10) {dd = "0" + dd; } if (mm < 10) {mm = "0" + mm; } if (inFormat == "YYYY-MM-DD") {return (yyyy + "-" + mm + "-" + dd); } if (inFormat == "MM/DD/YYYY") { return (mm + "/" + dd + "/" + yyyy); } return (inStr); } // End of function

11. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. // ****** Use to set the date variables to specific formats ******* var start; if (!start) // This is forces the routine to only be executed when the screen is first loaded (not subsequent updates { // in the event of cascading prompts). var d; d = new Date(); // ** Here we are going to set pDate1 to Current Date d.setDate(d.getDate()); // One Day Ago pickerControlpDate1.setValue( dtFormat(d, "YYYY-MM-DD") ); // THIS IS THE FORMAT TO SET A DATE PICKER.. THE NAME FIELD MUST BE SET ON THE PARAMETER d=new Date(); // Default pDate2 to one year ago d.setYear(d.getYear() -1); // Previous Year setTextBoxPromptValue("pDate2", dtFormat(d, "YYYY-MM-DD") ) ; // Put todays date into pDate2 (YYYY-MM-DD format) d = new Date(); // ** Here we are going to set pDate3 to 7 days prior to today d.setDate(d.getDate()- 7); // 7 Days Ago setTextBoxPromptValue("pDate3", dtFormat(d, "MM/DD/YYYY") ) ; d = new Date(); // ** Here we are going to set pBegDate to 1st day of previous Month d.setDate(1); // First Day of month d.setMonth(d.getMonth() -1); // Previous Month pickerControlpBegDate.setValue( dtFormat(d, "YYYY-MM-DD") ); // THIS IS THE FORMAT TO SET A DATE PICKER.. THE NAME FIELD MUST BE SET ON THE PARAMETER d = new Date(); // ** Here we are going to set pEndDate to last day of previous month d.setDate(1); // Set date to first day of current month d.setDate(d.getDate() -1); // and subtract one day to get last day of previous month pickerControlpEndDate.setValue( dtFormat(d, "YYYY-MM-DD") ); } start=1; JavaScript Dates (Continued )

12. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Date Prompting - (My Default Layout) File: DatePromptPage.txt *********************************** *********************************** **** ***** Best done using NOTEPAD ***** ***** 1. Select all from below the cut line and copy into clipboard ***** ***** 2. Go into cognos report ***** ***** 3. Hover of Page Explorer - Click on Prompt Pages Folder ***** ***** 4. Click on right side in blank area of Prompt Pages ***** ***** 5. Paste contents of clipboard ***** *********************************** *********************************** **** ***** COPY AND PASTE FROM BELOW NEXT LINE TO END OF FILE ***** *********************************** *********************************** ****

13. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Cascading Prompts Cascading prompting can be used to fill prompts after another prompt has been filled. Be careful in using the auto-submit property. The report may start up before you are ready. Instead add a Reprompt Button on the page to reset other prompts if they are based on previous values. Each query can be driven by a prompt selected in a previous query.

14. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. TIPS / Tricks Create Templates for Prompt Pages Click NO on main query for property Use for Parameter Info Can use a user defined table for generated prompts that may be more useful. *A user can copy objects between different reports The date prompt page may be loaded from the.txt files that are enclosed. Cut and paste as described at beginning of the file.

15. © 2012 Jenzabar, Inc. Any Questions?