Textbox prompt - How do you stop getting a dropdown box

[Phil]

Hi

I am new to cognos 10 and I have built a prompt page where I have a Text Box prompt which I have called Emp No.

This was with the idea that the user would input the employee number that they wish to report on and the filter would use this.
ie [Employee_Number] = ?Emp No?

but instead of a text field to type a number into, I get a dropdown box, which lists all employee numbers to select from.

How do I get it so that you just have to type the employee number. I do not want the dropdown box

Thanks

[BigChris]

The behaviour you're describing sounds like you've added a value prompt instead of a text box prompt.

[Raghuvir]

Hi Phil,

Just check the promt type you have used. the behavious you have described is a property of value prompt. i agree with Big Chris.

In text box prompt you will have an option to enter the text by default.

Regards

[Phil]

Hi

Yes it is a Text box promt and displays as a box with the 'a|' type symbol in it. (no down arrow). When I run the prompt page it works as I would expect. but when checking the View tabular data to check the query it displays a dropdown box and only allows you to select a value

Is this just a strange quirk of the View tabular data function and when I actually run the report it will work as expected?

thanks
Phil

[Raghuvir]

Hi Phil,

Once you are done with the development of the report. Try running the report from the cognos connection and thencheck the output. i am sure that the text box promt should do its job.

Regards

[BigChris]

Hi Phil - that makes more sense. What you're describing is indeed some quirkiness of running tabular data. When you think about it, it makes sense...the tabular data ignores the prompt page, but it still has the prompt. It knows which field you're prompting against, so it displays the data in that field for you to select from.

When you run the report in full from scratch it'll use the prompt page, so at that point you'll be able to type in a value.

[MFGF]

Hi

Yes it is a Text box promt and displays as a box with the 'a|' type symbol in it. (no down arrow). When I run the prompt page it works as I would expect. but when checking the View tabular data to check the query it displays a dropdown box and only allows you to select a value

Is this just a strange quirk of the View tabular data function and when I actually run the report it will work as expected?

thanks
Phil

The View Tabular Data option doesn't make use of any of the defined pages in the report - it just fires off the query. Your Text Box prompt is defined on a page, but this page isn't getting rendered. Since your query has a parameter that needs to be fulfilled, you are seeing an auto-generated prompt over which you have no control. Running the report normally should render your text box prompt as expected.

Cheers!

MF.

[Phil]

Thanks for your help and yes that was the problem I was just viewing the query data. Once I ran the report it was fine.

Thanks
Phil