Our organization is new to Cognos Report Studio and trying to use the search and select prompt to display a list of items from the database, allow the user to select one or more and place them in the selection box, then run the reports for those items. The problem we are having is the list box on the left do not display the list of items unless one is typed in the search box. We want it to allow users to either type to bring up a list or scroll through available items and select one or more. Thank you in advance for any assistance.
If you're just trying to select from a list, maybe a value prompt is right for you. I don't have a S&S prompt in front of me, but there may be some settings to pre-load. S&S is designed for when you have loads of values (100+). Value prompt as a list is more for a couple dozen items.
Since you're new to prompts, I highly recommend you google search the different kinds of parameter prompts to find what's right for your needs. Value and S&S are the two most common, and some developer's blog with pictures can be a lot more helpful than us answering questions on a forum.
I will save you one headache though and tell you that the prompts need to go hand-in-hand with the filters in your report studio queries. If you set a prompt to be optional, you also need to set the query filter to be optional. If you set a prompt to be multi-select, you also need to set the query filter to be in() instead of =.