Specify the Reaction Behavior of a Control

Specify the reaction behavior of a control to determine how a control will react when another control, or an object in the control, is selected.

About this task

You can specify the following reaction behaviors:

Select an item in a control.
You can specify this reaction behavior for any control, except for single button controls.

For example, you specify a default value for a variable, and the variable drives a drop-down list control. When the report is run, you want the default value to appear in the control.

You can also specify to select the first or last item in a control by default. For example, an active report contains two data radio button groups that are connected to each other. The first data button group is driven by Product line and the second data button group is driven by Product type. When a user clicks on a product line, the product types that belong to the selected product line appear in the second radio button group, and you want the first or last radio button in the product type radio button group to be selected.
Filter data in a control.
For example, you want to filter the product types in a drop-down list control based on the product line selected in another drop-down list control.

You can specify this reaction behavior for drop-down lists, data drop-down lists, list boxes, data list boxes, radio button groups, data radio button groups, check box groups, data check box groups, lists, and crosstabs.
Enable a control.
For example, you want to make a control interactive only when a selection is first made in another control.

You can specify this reaction behavior for any control, except for decks, data decks, tabs, data tabs, lists, crosstabs, charts, and maps.

In addition to these behaviors, you can specify the item to appear when nothing is selected in a list control, hide or show a column, and whether to allow data to be sorted in a list.

IBM® Cognos® Report Studio automatically sets the reaction behavior when you define a connection between controls. However, you may want to change the reaction behavior or specify additional interactive behavior.

Procedure

Click the interactive behavior icon of the control.
If you want to specify the select an item in a control reaction behavior, and you want to specify to select the first item or the last item in the control by default, click the Auto Select menu and choose First Item or Last Item.
In the Reaction Behavior box, click the reaction behavior box that you want, such as Container Selection, and click the edit button that appears.
If a condition is not yet defined, two dialog boxes appear. The second dialog box prompts you to define the condition expression that you want to use to specify the reaction behavior.

Note: If the reaction behavior that you are setting is Container Selection, and you previously clicked an option other than None in the Auto Select menu, defining a condition sets the Auto Select menu to None. Similarly, if you define a condition in the Container Selection box, and you then set the Auto Select menu to an option other than None, the condition is deleted.
In the first Item box, define the left side of the condition expression.
- To use a data item, click the Data Item radio button and then click the item that you want to use.
  The data items that are available in the drop-down list depend on the data items that you inserted into the control.
- To use a static item, click the Value radio button, type the value that you want to use, and then specify the value's data type.
  The value must be defined as a value of the selected active report variable in the next step.
- If you want to set the value of an active report variable to null, click the Empty Variable radio button.
Click the Operator drop-down list and select the operator that you want to use.
In the second Item box, define the right side of the condition expression.
- To use a value in an active report variable, click the Active Report Variable radio button and then click the variable that you want to use.
  The variables that are available in the drop-down list depend on the variables that you defined in the report.
- To use a static item, click the Value radio button, type the value that you want to use, and then specify the value's data type.
- To use null as the value, click the Empty Data Item radio button.
  Use null as the value to specify the reaction behavior when no data exists for the value selected in the source control.
If you want to apply the condition when no item is selected in the source control, clear the Drop this condition if the variable is empty check box.
Clearing the check box can improve performance and prompt users to perform an action. For example, a report contains a list with many rows of data, and the list is filtered by another control. When the check box is cleared, no data will appear in the list until an item is selected in the other control.