Filter Chart with Data Deck

[Anas523112]

Hello.. :)

I would like to ask for help

I have a problem about the chart in active report

I use a checkbox control to filter my chart in the data deck.
I didn't give any default value in the filter's variable. But when I run the report, the chart is always filtered by one of the choices in the checkbox eventhough no filter is selected yet.

Please advice.
Thanks

[MFGF]

Hello.. :)

I would like to ask for help

I have a problem about the chart in active report

I use a checkbox control to filter my chart in the data deck.
I didn't give any default value in the filter's variable. But when I run the report, the chart is always filtered by one of the choices in the checkbox eventhough no filter is selected yet.

Please advice.
Thanks

Hi,

Do you really mean a chart, or are you using a visualization? They work and behave differently.

Assuming you have a chart and it's on a data deck, let's explain how this works and what you're seeing. We can then understand how to deliver what you're really after here.

Think of a data deck as being like a pack of cards. If you are using a data item containing 10 distinct values to drive your data deck, the deck will have 10 cards - one card corresponding to each data value. You now add a chart to the data deck, and link it via a master / detail relationship based on the same item. This means each card now contains a version of the chart that displays values only for that specific data item value.

Now assume you run the report, and don't select any of the cards of the data deck. What do you end up seeing? The answer is... the first card. Which of the data values will this correspond to? The first value read when the report was rendered. You have to see one of the cards, so you're just seeing the first. Imagine you have a pack of cards, you shuffle them, and you place the pack face-up on the table. You look down at the pack and what do you see? The card that happens to be first in the stack. This is exactly what's happening in your report.

In fact you're not filtering your chart at all. There is no chart engine included in the active report output, so charts can't be interactively re-rendered, which means you can't filter them. The control you add to your report selects the data deck, it doesn't filter the chart. In selecting the data deck, you're simply choosing to display a specific card of the deck with a pre-rendered chart image on it.

So, how can you change the behaviour of the report so that when you first run it, you see an unfiltered chart? The key to this is in understanding that decks and data decks have an optional default card. It's optional because it isn't enabled unless you explicitly enable it in the properties of the data deck. The default card then gets displayed when no value is set to select the data deck cards (ie before you start to choose specific cards using the control in your report). The default card will be blank when you enable it, so the final bit is to add another chart to it - a chart corresponding to all data values for all cards (ie one that isn't master/detail linked).

Hope that helps your understanding and assists you in getting the result you need in your report.

Cheers!

MF.