Flex Reporting

Introduction

Flex reporting is a new style of Formula Reporting introduced in Version 7.6. It allows a report designer to define a custom drill path for a report, so the user of the report could drill, for example, from Products => Customers => Orders. Each Drill is performed so that only rows with data are return, this means drilling into a particular product would only return customers that have bought that product (this is dependent on the Measure applying over both hierarchies)

Getting Started

The starting place for any Flex Report is to insert a Grid and define the starting structure, so which dimensions will be on filters, rows and columns. As with traditional formula reports the structure of the report is static once converted to formula so it's important to start with a grid that matches the final structure.

Once the grid is ready, right-click and select "Convert to flex report", this will show the Flex Report form.

Flex Reporting Form

A individual drill level is called a "Flex Set" and a collection of these is a "Flex Path". A individual member can be assigned a "Flex Path" and as the user drills they will navigate the "Flex Sets" in the path.

Flex Paths

A workbook can contain several Flex Paths, it's also possible to export and import the definitions so they can be reused. Each flex path has a defined name, and it's this name that links a formula to a particular flex path.

When converting a grid to a flex report, select or define the default path for the flex report and click OK (you can always edit the formula to change the flex path later)

[[File:FlexPathOptions.png]

Flex Sets

A flex set is the level to drill to you can control the order the flex sets appear in by using the toolbar to move them:

Each set can be given a name, this will default to the level name (the name will be shown on the right-click menu) and can be changed to anything suitable.