[Mondrian] Using parameters in Pentaho Report Designer 3.5 -- issue with formulas

[Julian Hyde]

Looking at the general problem of getting member-valued parameters into
mondrian. Off the top of my head, here is a list of requirements. Please
comment on whether we have them, and their importance.

First, we need a member-picker. E.g. if the parameter is a product, it would
allow you to browse the manufacturer, brand, product, SKU hierarchy.

For dates, you could either use that picker or, for better usability, choose
dates using a calendar. The picker could then map date values to members of
the date hierarchy using Mondrian's StrToMember. That's a tricky process,
because you have to use the metadata about whether each level is a year,
quarter, month etc. I could help create a UDF for that:

DateToMember(
  <date string>,
  <date format>,
  <hierarchy>) --> member of hierarchy

Some people might define a report that takes levels other than the date
level. E.g. a report that can either take a year or a quarter. The
calendar-based picker should deal with those levels too.

Some reports might have date ranges. It might make sense to have a picker
for date ranges. Or at least some logic that ensures that the second date is
after the first.

Mondrian now supports parameters that are lists of members (in latest
perforce, coming in 4.0). We will need a picker for those. Probably the
member picker but with multiselect.

To summarize, there are 4 pickers that would be useful:

1. member picker for general hierarchy
2. date picker
3. date range picker
4. member list picker

Ideally, PRD & CDF should have all of these. How many do we have, and can I
help build the rest of them?

Julian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org 
> [mailto:mondrian-bounces at pentaho.org] On Behalf Of Phil Cole
> Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 3:42 AM
> To: mondrian at pentaho.org
> Subject: Re: [Mondrian] Using parameters in Pentaho Report 
> Designer 3.5 -- issue with formulas
> 
> Pedro was a bit of a legend and worked out a way for the date 
> picker to feed the current date into an MDX query.
> 
> First you have to change the java date returned by the date 
> picker to a java string using open formula in the report. 
> E.g. MDXDateStr equals [Date].[All 
> Years].[2009].[Q1].[MAR].[23] and then pass this in as a 
> parameter to an MDX query in a subreport. 
> 
> Pretty painful!
> 
> Phil
> 
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