How to avoid use the wildcard in a prompt ?

[Former Member]

I have report in WEBI 4.1. This report has to work as internet search. The report is filtering by prompt. The prompt operator is "matches pattern". The requestor of the report informed me that we need to avoid using the wild card, for example %Ar%. The reason is that the end user is not computer savvy. I would like if there way to avoid the wild card in the prompt when the user is using the operator matches pattern.

[amitrathi239 · Accepted solution]

it seems there is no other solution if you are using match pattern in the prompt.What about if you keep some meaningful prompt text so that user can understand.

e.g

Please enter Text.e.g %Ar%

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the idea

[nscheaffer]

You could use custom SQL and concatenate the wildcards before and after the @prompt function. Keep in mind the query will regenerate and you will lose your custom SQL if you edit the query in any way.

Here is an example of what I mean with a prompt on Store name from the eFashion universe.

Outlet_Lookup.Shop_name  LIKE '%' + @prompt('Enter Store name:','A',,Mono,Free,Not_Persistent,,User:0) + '%'

This certainly is not an elegant solution, but I believe it will meet your users requirement.

Noel

[Former Member]

It's possible with a universe defined prompt, but not in a report query based prompt. To help the user you could have %Enter Search Here% as a default value.