Report Setup - Parameter Error

hello -- we are building a report, it has two parameters that are being pulled from a view. 

the view looks like this

facility  section
theater1 zone1
theater1 zone2
theater1 zone3
theater1 zone4
theater2 zoneA
theater2 zoneB
theater2 zoneC
All          NULL

for the table name i have the view
the display is facility and the data column is also facility for parameter 1
parameter 2 is built similarly the display/data columns are both called section  and the where clause states <<p1>>  = facility and the disable clause states <<p1>> = 'All'

this works but it has two major issues and i know one isn't fixable but maybe someone has a work around the other must be fixable because it would be silly to have data display like this 

anyway what I want to appear in my drop downs is this
for facility 
theater1
theater2
All 

when i specify the facility i.e. theater2, zone should display ZoneA, ZoneB and ZoneC (this functionality works). 

but what is happening is that its displaying this:

facility 
theater1
theater1
theater1
theater1
theater2
theater2
theater2
All         

how do i distinct it (and we only have the one view pulling all the data). but i can't seem to use the word distinct anywhere as it breaks the report. (this error has to be fixable in set up somehow). 

the second issue that keeps happening is if i select multi select for parameter 1 then parameter 2 doesn't display any data. I have to turn off multi select for facility to get zone to show anything at all! I don't understand why we can't show me the multi select for the connected parameters? i say theater1 and theater2 and i get all the applicable zones to those facilities? I know there is probably no solution to this but I wanted to ask anyways. Because it seems like a system flaw. 

thank you
-Lisa

  • This sounds totally doable. I would recommend using a separate view for parameter 1, and use the facility_no as the data value. (Then modify your parameter 2 view to include the facility_no.) When you do multi-select, the value is treated as a string, which means when you use it as a filter for parameter 2, you can't just do WHERE facility_no = <<p1>> or even WHERE facility_no IN (<<p1>>). Instead, you have to do something like WHERE CHARINDEX(',' + CAST(facility_no AS varchar) + ',', ',' + <<p1>> + ',') > 0. This is basically composing a string using the parameter value and then searching for the facility_no within it.

    You may also be able to find a canned report that does multi-select filtering a use its parameter setup as a model.

  • Thanks, the second part is a great idea -- and if all else fails we will go the two view option, i was just not sure why/how to select a distinct field from the view since i'm selecting a single column, why can't it be distinct. thanks again.