Introduction

In one of the previous article (link here) we have seen how to embed a BI Publisher Report in a Dashboard, but there we did not mapped the BI Report parameter.

In this post we would try to associate a parameterised BI Report (Based on SQL Data Source) within a Dashboard.

So, without much delay let-us get started.

Worked Example

As a first step we would either have to create a parameterised BI Report or use an existing one.

In the next step we would need to create a “Dashboard Prompt”.

Navigation is: Navigation: Navigator -> Tools -> Reports and Analytics -> BI Catalog->New Dashboard Prompt

One point to note here is that the name of the Dashboard Prompt (the component name) should be same as that of the BI Report parameter name.

Now we have both our components namely “BI Report” and the “Dashboard Prompt” which will be required to build the dashboard.

So, we will proceed with building the custom dashboard.

Navigation: Navigator -> Tools -> Reports and Analytics -> BI Catalog->New

Once we click on the “Dashboard” option a New Page will open “New Dashboard” which would ask you for some details like Name, Description, Location ,Content, etc. For this example, we would populate the following details

Once we drop both the components “PersonNumber” Dashboard prompt and “Employee LE-BU-Department Report” the dashboard will look as below:

Now the setup is complete.

As a final step we would try to run the dashboard and verify results.

Verification

I hope you guys have made a note that we have made “Person Number” Dashboard prompt as a Non-Mandatory one ( “Required User Input” flag is unchecked) and also we have defaulted it to a specific value as “541”. 

Here we will check for three scenarios namely:

1. Not providing any input (that is runs with default value as 541)
2. Removing all input (Person Number as Blank)
3. Providing any person number 

Running Dashboard without input (Default Value)

If we open the dashboard, then we will see that the person number field is having a default value as “541” and if we click on apply we see following results

Running Dashboard by removing all input (Person Number as Blank)

If we now remove all inputs and run the dashboard we will see following results:

Running Dashboard by providing a valid Person Number (Other than default value)

If we pass any other person number apart from the default value 541 we will get results for that person number. Say, if we pass “1013” we will get results for person number “1013” as shown below:

Summary

So, this is how we can embed a parameterised BI Report in a Dashboard.

Hope you guys were able to grasp the concept and will be able to utilise this.

Thanks all for your time, have a nice day ahead. 

Ashish Harbhajanka

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