How to conditionally set Interaction (Action Links) on a column in OBIEE 11g

How to conditionally set Interaction (Action Links) on a column in OBIEE 11g

This post shows an example of how to conditionally set Interaction (Action Links) on a column.

Most times, when you set “Interaction” on a column, you set it for the column under all conditions – this is the default.  However, it is possible to conditionally set “Interaction” on a column – so that the Interaction link is conditionally available.

Let’s look at an example …

You have a pivot table displaying Values by day range as shown below.  Interaction is set on the measure value, and therefore, a user can click on any of the measure values (in any column and any row) to drill/navigate to a more detailed report for example. 

(Note that all the measure values are “blue” indicating that they are hyperlinks allowing navigation to some other BI content).

Let’s now assume that you only want to make the Interaction available for the measure values associated with “Value A”.  Therefore, the row in your pivot table associated with “Value A” will have measure values that are clickable (hyperlinks), while the “Value B” row values will not.  In other words, you only want to allow drill down/navigation on “Value A” data.

To do this, from your analysis, edit the column properties, and go to the Interaction tab, and Edit the relevant Action Link.

Change the “Show Link” property from “Always” to “Conditionally”.

Then enter the condition(s) in the Conditions box. Such as in our example, we want to show/activate the action link only for “Value A” values.  So, choose the column, and then select “Value A” (and of course, do not select “Value B”).

Now when you go back to your report, action links will only be available on the measure values for “Value A” row.

(Note that only the measure values associated with “Value A” are “blue” indicating that they are hyperlinks allowing navigation to some other BI content; while “Value B” values are black indicating that they are not clickable.)

You can add more conditions and more complex conditions as necessary. One thought that came to mind … I could even see this being used to conditionally set Action Links based on users – allowing some users to be able to click the action links while others just see the data without being able to click and navigate to other detail.