How to grant filtering functionality for viewers/end-users on ‘Input Control’ enabled report blocks(Chart & Table) in web Intelligence reports without enabling the design mode’

Introduction

In most of the business scenarios from report viewers perspective it is very important to view data with more dynamic filtering features at the same time from business/application perspective the viewers should not change the defined version of the report.

One such scenario with BO Web Intelligence reporting is when ‘Input controls’ are utilized to link report objects (Charts & Tables). The challenge is when the report is viewed in ‘Read mode’ the filtering of data based on the report blocks(Charts & Table) will not work as the ‘Input controls’ are used to link the report blocks and these ‘Input controls’ can work only when the report is viewed in ‘Design mode’.

Aforementioned limitation can be overcome by assigning the design/formatting rights to the report viewers without enabling design menu on the viewers report display.

Live Scenario:

In HR-Time Attendance reports, Team Mangers views their team members ‘Team Calendar’ data in a snapshot for a given period of time (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly & Yearly).

Ex: Suppose report viewer gives range 01/09/2015 to 30/09/2015.

As per the selected data range report displays employee count with respect to his/her status (Present, Absent, Leave, Training etc.,) in a Pie chart block, further when the viewer clicks on the Pie(employee status) the corresponding details of the employees will be displayed in a Table block.

Below steps can be used to achieve the data in the report as per the above example.

Steps to reproduce

This demonstration was made with SAP Business Objects BI Platform 4.1 SP4. It assume that you have already log in BI Launch Pad and launch Web Intelligence application.

1. Create a report with two report blocks(Pie chart & Table) .(In this example BEx query is the datasource)

2. Establish link between Pie chart and Table(Based on the selection of the pie section on the pie chart only its corresponding data has to be displayed in the table)

3. Note: Input control are automatically assigned

4. Save the document/report to the folder and assign the rights on this folder to the consumer group/users

5. Assign rights to the connection(Ex: BICS) for this consumer group/users

6. Run the report as a consumer/end user with read only rights

7. Click on any of the pie section to filter the data in the table block, notice that there is no refresh on the table block content and a pop up will appear with an error message

8. To remove the error, Log on to CMC as admin and create a group(if you have not created yet)

9. Add the end-users to this group(Ex: Consumer)

10. From the group context menu select Customization

11. Un-check the design menu tools/features(Note: You can customize the Web Intelligence application menu/screen elements displayed to the report viewer)

12. Run the report as consumer/end-user notice that table block contents are refreshing as per the selections on pie chart and the design menu is not appeared to the viewers.