Freehand SQL @Prompt/Calendar button/Date format

[Former Member]

I have difficulties locating information on these topics. Most of our DeskI reports are freehand-sql reports. The queries contain @prompt functions.

First question is: where can I find the documentation on @PROMPT? What are the parameters?

When ran in Infoview date prompts are sometimes followed by a button that displays a calendar control to select the date, sometimes not.

Second question: what determines when the button is used?

Sometimes if someone modifies a report and exports it again the date format in the Infoview prompt changes, in particular if the button is used. For instance there was a report prompting for a start date and an end date. Both dates were returned in European format (day/month/year) and apparently the start date was followed by time 00:00:00 and the end date by 23:59:59. Now, after someone exported the report again with a non-related change to the query, the dates are in American format (month/day/year) and are both followed by time 12:00:00

Third question: what determines the date format returned by the calendar control? (More importantly, how do I control the format)

This is driving me mad as users are asking me to put it back as it was last week and I can't find anything about any of this. I asked questions by raising a ticket several months ago and was taken to a wild goose chase involving several Webex sessions with an support engineer changing the locale of my machine to Fidji (or something) telling me that this was the place that had the date format I wanted. Nice one. Of course it was not. It happened the current month in that locale was like in English but the following month was not...

Thanks in advance for any help.

Olivier

[Former Member]

Olivier,

The .prm file can be found on the server your CMS is installed. For example our environment sits atop a SQL Server ODBC Connection.

Therefore our .prm file is located in

C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 11.5\win32_x86\dataAccess\connectionServer\odbc\sqlsrv.prm

Within the connectionserver folder, you can find various database subfolders, each of which has its own .prm file.

Hope this helps.

[Former Member]

Olivier,

First question is: where can I find the documentation on @PROMPT? What are the parameters?

The best place to learn about @prompts is in the DM310 (Universe Design) course. Here is a quick rundown based on BO XI R2 SP3 behavior:

Consists of seven parameters, separated by comma:

prompt (the message to the user)

data type (A (alpha), N (numeric), or D (date))

LOV Pointer or hard-coded list (LOV can be a pointer to a class/object in your universe or a delimited hard-coded list enclosed in curly-brackets { })

Mono or Multi (equivalent to saying whether the comparison is based on equals (=) or in a list (in))

Free or Constrained (free allows the user to type free-hand or pick from a list, constrained makes the user pick from a list only)

Not_Persistent (optional and when used does not re-present the last chosen values from a previous run in the current run, otherwise when skipped will "cache" the last response as pre-selected)

User:0 (or User:1, etc, used to create a set sequence when this prompt is used with other prompts)

so, here is a sample:

@prompt('Select Widget','A','Widget Group\Type',mono,constrained,Not_Persistent,,User:0)

Thanks,

John

[Former Member]

John,

Thank you very much for your answer to the first question. That's very useful.

I also found the answer to my second question: the calendar control comes automatically when the type is 'date'.

I am still waiting for the answer to the 3rd question, which is really where it hurts: How can I change (or have an influence on) the format of the date?

I need to understand why the format changes when some users modify a report and how I can put it back to the intended format.

I have users in various European countries (UK, France, Germany...), some in Middle East and Asia and some in the USA. Ideally each would see dates in their own local format. Failing that I'd rather force a date in format dd-Mon-yyyy where Mon is the 3 letter month in English because that format removes the ambiguity between North American dates and European dates in numbers-only format.

Thank you very much in advance for help on this

Olivier

[Former Member]

Hi Oliver,

Following information might help you to resolve question number 3.

1. Could you please check the regional settings you are using on the BO server if you are not getting the date format correctly through info view?

2. Would request you to check the option migration forced under tools->option->general tab and select the English UK and check the option migration forced. Save the report and export it to repository.

3. Also,check on the corresponding .prm file the User_Date_input format to be dd/mon/yyyy.

4. Could you please do the following settings in infoview.

1Log on to Info View > Preferences>General Tab

2. Select English for Product Locale

3. Select Preferred Viewing Local > Select English (UK)

(NOTE: all these settings should be done on the Business Objects server.)

If the above doesnu2019t help and if by any chance you are on BOXIR2 SP2 then could you please test the issue on FP2.5?

Regards,

Sarbhjeet Kaur

[Former Member]

Thanks for your replies. The numbers below correspond you the numbering of your questions/suggestions

1) Regional Settings on the server show the date in the British format (dd/mm/yyyy for the short date)

2) Force Migration is checked on my client and English UK is selected

3) Looking for the 'corresponding .prm file', but I have no idea what it is...

4) Infoview on the server has already the default interface locale set to English (United Kingdom). How is that supposed to make any difference to the running of Infoview on clients?