What Are Inline and Dashboard Prompts?

The two differences between inline prompts and dashboard prompts is where they are stored and their runtime behavior.

A prompt that is created at the analysis level is called an inline prompt because the prompt is embedded in the analysis and is not stored in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog and, therefore, cannot be added to other analyses. Inline prompts allow the end users to specify the data values that determine the content of the analysis. An inline prompt can be a column prompt, variable prompt, image prompt, or currency prompt. When you create an inline prompt, you select the columns and operators for the prompt and specify how the prompt is displayed to the users and how the users select the values. The user's choices determine the content of the analyses that are embedded in the dashboard. An inline prompt is an initial prompt, meaning that it only displays when the analysis is rendered. After the user selects the prompt value, the prompt fields disappear from the analysis and the only way for the user to select different prompt values is to re-run the analysis.

A prompt that is created at the dashboard level is called a dashboard prompt because the prompt is created outside of a specific dashboard and is stored in the catalog as an object, which can then be added to any dashboard or dashboard page that contains the columns that are specified in the prompt. Dashboard prompts allow the end users to specify the data values that determine the content of all of the analyses and scorecard objects contained on the dashboard.A dashboard prompt can be a column prompt, variable prompt, image prompt, or currency prompt. Dashboard prompts are reusable, because you can create one prompt and use it many times. When the prompt object is updated and saved, those updates are immediately displayed in all dashboards where the prompt is used. A dashboard prompt is a specific kind of filter that, when created, saved, and applied to a dashboard or dashboard pages, can filter all or some of the analyses and scorecard objects that are embedded in a dashboard or analyses and scorecard objects that are embedded on the same dashboard page. A dashboard prompt is interactive and is always displayed on the dashboard page so that the user can prompt for different values without having to re-run the dashboard. Users can create and save dashboard prompts to either a private folder or to a shared folder.

Note that for a dashboard using a column that was renamed in the Business Model, the existing dashboard prompts based on the renamed column do not work with newly created analyses. The workaround for this issue is to use Catalog Manager to rename the column in the catalog.

For more information about creating a column prompt, see "Creating a Column Prompt."