Report Studio

Specifying the Reaction Behavior of a Control

Specify the reaction behavior of a control to determine how a control will react when another control, or an object in the control, is selected

You can specify the following reaction behaviors:

Select an item in a control.
For example, you specify a default value for a variable, and the variable drives a drop-down list control. When the report is run, you want the default value to appear in the control.

You can specify this reaction behavior for any control, except for single button controls.
Filter data in a control.
For example, you want to filter the product types in a drop-down list control based on the product line selected in another drop-down list control.

You can specify this reaction behavior for drop-down lists, data drop-down lists, list boxes, data list boxes, radio button groups, data radio button groups, check box groups, data check box groups, lists, and crosstabs.
Enable a control.
For example, you want to make a control interactive only when a selection is first made in another control.

You can specify this reaction behavior for any control except for decks, data decks, tabs, data tabs, lists, crosstabs, charts and maps.

In addition to the above behaviors, you can specify the item to appear when nothing is selected in a list control, hide or show a column, and whether to allow data to be sorted in a list.

Report Studio automatically sets the reaction behavior when you define a connection between controls. However, you may want to change the reaction behavior or specify additional interactive behavior.

To specify the reaction behavior of a control:

Click the Interactive Behavior icon of the source control.
In the Reaction Behavior box, pause the mouse pointer to the right of the reaction behavior that you want to modify or create and click the edit button that appears.
If a condition has not yet been defined, two dialog boxes appear. The second dialog box prompts you to define the condition expression that you want to use to specify the reaction behavior.
In the Item box on the left, define the left side of the condition expression
To use a data item, click the Data Item radio button and then click the item that you want to use.
The data items that are available in the drop-down list depend on the data items that you inserted into the control.
To use a static item, click the Value radio button, type the value that you want to use, and then specify the value's data type.
The value must be defined as a value of the selected active report variable in the next step.
If you want to set the value of an active report variable to null, click the Empty Variable radio button.
Click the Operator drop-down list and select the operator that you want to use.
In the Item box on the right, define the right side of the condition expression.
To use a value in an active report variable, click the Active Report Variable radio button and then click the variable that you want to use.
The variables that are available in the drop-down list depend on the variables that you defined in the report.
To use a static item, click the Value radio button, type the value that you want to use, and then specify the value's data type.
To use null as the value, click the Empty Data Item radio button.
Use null as the value to specify the reaction behavior when no data exists for the value selected in the source control.
If you want to apply the condition when no item is selected in the source control, clear the Drop this condition if the variable is empty check box.

Clearing the check box can improve performance and prompt users to perform an action. For example, a report contains a list with many rows of data, and the list is filtered by another control. When the check box is cleared, no data will appear in the list until an item is selected in the other control.