Alerters enable you to highlight results that meet or fail specific business targets. You can create a simple alerter to highlight particularly high or low results with a specific color or with a text comment, such as “High Performer.”
An alerter can contain up to six conditions. This enables you to highlight information that meets multiple business criteria. For example, you can define an alerter that highlights high revenue for a specific business activity or customer sector.
You can apply alerters to table body cells (by column or row), to section cells, to header cells, and to free-standing cells. However, you cannot apply alerters to entire tables or forms, or to charts.
Business Objects officially supports up to 30 alerters in a Web Intelligence document. You can apply those alerters to a maximum of 20 table columns or rows, free-standing cells, or section cells on the reports.
Business Objects officially supports up to 10 different alerters on a single table column or row, free-standing cell, or section cell.
You can define alerters to activate the following formatting changes to the selected table columns/rows or cells:
• text color, size and style
• cell border colors and style
• cell background display – specific colors, images, or hyperlinks to web pages
You can also define alerters that display a text or formula, an image, or a hyperlink. In this case, the results that meet the condition defined in the alerter will be replaced by the text for formula.
If you define an alerter with multiple conditions, each condition generates the same formatting changes. To generate different formatting changes for different conditions, you must use sub-alerters.
Alerters are dynamic. This means that when you refresh reports with the
Using alerters to highlight results
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Creating, using and removing alertersIf you apply an alerter to a table row or column with a break, the alerter is only activated when the value that meets the condition in the alerter appears on the first row of that break.
Sub-alerters
An alerter can be made of multiple sub-alerters, each containing one or multiple conditions. Sub-alerters allow you to apply different conditions and different formatting to a single object.
You must use sub-alerters if you want different conditions to generate different formats. If you define an alerter with multiple conditions, the alerter format is applied to all of the conditions.
For example, in a single alerter defined for [Sales revenue], one sub-alerter can highlight high results in green and a second sub-alerter can highlight low results in red. You can include a maximum of eight sub-alerters in an alerter.
To launch the Alerter Editor and name a new alerter
1. Click a table column, a table row, a section cell or a free-standing cell.
2. Click Alerters on the toolbar to display the "Alerters" dialog box.
3. Click New.
4. In the Alerter name text box, type a name for the alerter.
5. Type the alerter description in the Description text box.
To add alerter conditions
1. In the "Alerter Editor", click + to the right of Format.
Note: You do not need to click + to add the first condition.
2. Define the condition by specifying the appropriate Filtered object or cell, Operator and Operand(s).
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Using alerters to highlight results Creating, using and removing alerters
Description Option
Use this option to define the alerter on whichever cell contents are selected on the report, independent of any specific object or variable.
Select Cell Contents.
Use this option to define the alerter on a specific object or variable in the document.
Leave the current object name selected, or click ..., then select Objects and variables from the popup menu, then select an ob-ject or variable from the list and click OK.
If the cell(s) on which you want to create an alerter contains date or numeric type data (for example, a date or a calculation) you need to select an object or variable instead of Cell contents. This is because, Web Intelligence considers any value you type into the Operand(s) text box as a character string.
3. To remove a condition, click - next to the condition.
To format alerters
1. Click Format in the "Alerter Editor".
The "Alerter Display" dialog box appears.
2. Use the "Alerter Display" dialog box to specify the alerter format.
3. Click OK to close the "Alerter Display" dialog box.
To add sub-alerters
1. Click Add Sub-Alerter in the "Alerter Editor"
2. Define the sub-alerter conditions.
3. To remove a sub-alerter, click Remove Sub-Alerter.
To activate or deactivate an alerter
1. Click the table column, table row, section cell or a free-standing cell to
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Creating, using and removing alerters2. Click Alerters on the toolbar.
3. Check (to activate) or uncheck (to deactivate) the checkbox next to the alerter you want to activate or deactivate.
To remove alerters
1. Click Alerters on the toolbar.
The "Alerters" dialog box appears.
2. Select the alerter you want to remove, then click Remove.
3. Click OK to close the Alerters dialog box.
To prioritize alerters
1. Click the Alerters button on the report panel The "Alerters" dialog box appears.
2. To set the alerter priority for the entire document, click a blank area of the report page. To set the alerter priority for a select cell, column or row, select the cell, column or row.
3. Select the alerter you want to prioritize.
4. Click Up to increase the alerter priority or Down to decrease the priority.
To duplicate alerters
1. Click the Alerters button on the report panel The "Alerters" dialog box appears.
2. Select the alerter you want to duplicate, then click Duplicate.
The duplicate alerter appears in the list with the name <Original alerter name> (n). For example, if the original alerter is called Champions, the first duplicate is called Champions (1).
To edit alerters
1. Click Alerters on the toolbar.
The "Alerters" dialog box appears.
2. Select the alerter you want to edit and click Edit.
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Using alerters to highlight results Creating, using and removing alerters
3. Edit the alerter in the "Alerter Editor".
To select an object or variable
1. Select the object or variable from the list.
2. Click OK.
To select values from a list
1. To search the list of values, type the string for which you want to search in the search box beneath the list.
2. Click the arrow to the right of the search box and select Normal (for a non-case-sensitive search) or Match Case (case-sensitive).
3. Select the value from the list.
4. Click OK.