Can Dashboard Prompts and Analysis Prompts Interact?

You can combine and wire prompts in various ways to create dashboards and reports that allow users to quickly and easily request precise, meaningful data. Combining and wiring prompts enables you to specify how dashboard prompts interact with analysis prompts. Note that currency prompts and variable prompts cannot be combined or wired.

For example, you can create analysis A that contains information about the amount of product that is sold by region and to the Region column add the Is protected option and then add a Region prompt. You can then create analysis B that contains information about sales person by region and analysis C that contains information about city by region. You then create and save a dashboard prompt for Region. When you create a dashboard and add analyses A, B, and C and the Region dashboard prompt and run the dashboard, the dashboard prompt input drives only what is displayed in analyses B and C. In this scenario, analysis A does not use the Region value that is specified in the dashboard prompt because you set analysis A's Region column filter value to Is protected. Therefore, the only way that analysis A accepts a prompt value is if the user specifies a prompt value in Region A's prompt fields.

There are various ways that you can combine and wire prompts. Table 6-1 describes each method.

Table 6-1 Methods of Combining and Wiring Oracle BI EE Analysis and Dashboard Prompts

Wiring Method	Description
Auto wiring	Oracle BI Enterprise Edition's auto wiring functionality assumes that you intended to create a functioning prompt for the column and, therefore, activates and applies the prompt. Oracle BI EE applies the auto wiring method when you create an analysis and add a column prompt or image prompt. This auto wiring method does not require the is prompted filter operator. Any unprotected filter can be used. Note that setting the filter operator to is prompted provides a more precise level of control between prompts and filters than the auto wiring method. For more information, see the "Filter operator is set to is prompted" row in this table.
Constrained Prompts	Use this method with several columns in a prompt to constrain the user's prompt choice based on subsequent choices. Constrained prompts can be set up on the "Prompt options dialog" to specify which prompt narrows the choices. For example, if one column filters on region and the next column filters on city, then the city column can be constrained to show only cities in the selected region.
Filter operator is set to is prompted	Use this method to build complex prompts that interact with filters. When you use this method, you have full control over how the dashboard prompts, inline prompts, and filters are applied to the embedded analysis.
Selection steps Override with Prompt option	Use this method to use an analysis or dashboard column prompt to provide the data choices for a specific member selection step on a hierarchical or attribute column. Since you cannot use filters with hierarchical columns, selection steps are the only way that you can use prompts with hierarchical columns. Only one selection step per column selection step set can be overridden with a prompt. All selection steps before and after the overridden step are processed as specified. For more information about selections steps, see "What are Filters and Selection Steps?" and "Working with Selections of Data." For more information about creating a prompt that works with selections, see "Overriding a Selection Step With a Column Prompt."
Protected versus Unprotected filters	Use this method to determine whether the dashboard prompt can supply the inline prompt's value when the corresponding column's filter value is set to something other than Is prompted. The unprotected and protected filter settings can be used when a dashboard prompt and inline prompt reside on the same dashboard and both prompts were created for the same column. When the column's filter value is unprotected, the dashboard prompt value determines the analysis' results. If the filter value is set to something other than Is prompted (for example, Is equal to/is in) and the filter is set to protected filter, then the dashboard prompt cannot determine the report results. For more information about protecting a filter, see "Filters pane."