September 18, 2012 at 5:19 am
Hi Experts,
I had a manager asked me this question during an interview:
There is SSRS Tree prompt in a report, where user select's value from 1st prompt, then 2nd prompt...& so on.
This is frustrating for the client/user as there are 5 such prompts dependent on each other, as he has to select this 5 prompts each time to run the report.
So is there any other way of designing the SSRS report to implement the same logic ?
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September 19, 2012 at 7:29 am
you mean an alternative to cascading parameters? I have no idea! I look forward to your answer as I am very curious.
September 19, 2012 at 2:09 pm
I, too, am interested to hear the answer you gave. I am not primarily a report developer. So, I would have said something along the lines of, "Take a step back and re-examine the problem. Perhaps we could have a set of pre-set parameters for combinations that occur a lot. Other than that, the only answer that occurs to me is to re-think the logic of the report and how the parameters are derived."
This answer is probably not very adequate, though. :discuss:
September 20, 2012 at 2:42 am
Maybe this is silly but i only knew the following way to do it :
Suppose there are prompts called 'Year', 'Half Year', 'Quarter', 'Month' and 'Week'.
So the dependency of prompts goes like this : Year < Half Year < Quarter < Month < Week
And if i select Year as 2008, then i have to select the Half Year in the year 2008 as '2008 1st'/'2008 2nd'... and then quarter,month and week.
So i can rather use indentation with only one parameter called 'Fiscal Period' which has following values in it:
2008
--2008 1st
---2008 Q1
----Jan 2008
------Week 1 2008
------Week 2 2008
------Week 3 2008
------Week 4 2008
------Week 5 2008
----Feb 2008
------Week 6 2008
------Week 7 2008
------Week 8 2008
------Week 9 2008
------Week 10 2008
And after i gave this answer he was not quite satisfied with it and asked me of any other way of doing it. 🙁
BI Developer
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September 20, 2012 at 2:46 am
the only way i can think of is to have the 'commonly viewed parameters' as a seperate 'one-tick' option.
September 20, 2012 at 7:31 am
what about using defaults parameter values?
September 20, 2012 at 7:38 am
Some of the customer's irritation may have come from waiting for each cascading parameter to populate a list of options after selecting the previous parameter.
So, another solution might be to optimize the queries which populate the cascading parameter lists. If each parameter list in sequence populates in a tenth of a second, then who cares?
If that answer is not satisfying, then the interviewer needs to clarify the customer's complaint and the customer's requirements.
September 20, 2012 at 8:04 am
Of course, another possibility is that it wasn't an interview question at all. Possible that the manager who asked it was hoping for some free consulting from you, and if you answered the question, that would solve a problem for them, without them having to pay you. I've seen that happen before.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
September 20, 2012 at 8:13 am
LOL :hehe:
That reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon where an applicant is interviewing with the Pointy-Haired Boss:
Applicant: "But enough about me, let's talk about how I can help you with your career goals." :doze:
Pointy-Haired Boss: "You can help me with my career goals by working long hours for below-market wages."
Applicant: "Oh. I did not see that response coming." :blink:
Pointy-Haired Boss: "You're hired. I need employees who don't see it coming."
Classic! 😀
September 21, 2012 at 12:25 pm
the only way i can think of is to have the 'commonly viewed parameters' as a seperate 'one-tick' option.
I don't know how to do it.
what about using defaults parameter values?
If the manager was expecting this as answer i will be so angry on myself. As i thought that the answer couldn't be so simple.
GSquared (9/20/2012)
Of course, another possibility is that it wasn't an interview question at all. Possible that the manager who asked it was hoping for some free consulting from you, and if you answered the question, that would solve a problem for them, without them having to pay you. I've seen that happen before.
Yeah, if that's right, i am happy that i didn't gave him a satisfying answer.
And a funny thing happened during another interview. I saw the guy sitting beside the manager (who was interviewing me) recording the interview on his cellphone.
BI Developer
SSRS, SSIS, SSAS, IBM Cognos, IBM Infosphere Cubing services, Crystal reports, IBM DB2, SQL Server, T-SQL
Please visit... ApplyBI
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