Variables setup

[Phil]

Hi

I am new to Cognos 10 and still trying to work my way round some of the changes - I am use to Cognos 7 Impromtu

I want to schedule a report to run monthly to report on the last historic pay month. In order to do this the report would normal have a prompt to ask for the period to be reported. ie 201401 , 201402 , 201403 .... 201412 etc

What I was thinking was that if I could set up a variable called "Period" that was set as the period number ie 201401 if the current date was between a certain range. I think I need to use something like the "Case When" statement to check is the current date is between 1/5/14 - 31/5/14 to set Period as 201401. If it is between 1/6/14 - 30/6/14 to set it as 201402 etc

Then I would set my filter for something like Period_To_Report = Period

Is this possible and if so how do I this

Regards
Phil

[dax]

Hi Phil

This should certainly be possible.  You can use something called a prompt macro so that you can set your report up so that it defaults to the period you need, but if the user chooses to run it for a different period they still can.

Do you know if you're working with relational/DMR data?

Have a look at the post by nblank in this thread: http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,24443.msg76905.html - this should give you some ideas but post back with some more details if you get stuck.

Dax