User variables act as filters in data forms, enabling planners to focus only on certain members, such as a department. Before you can associate a user variable with a data form, you must create the user variable. See Managing User Variables.
When you create data forms with user variables, planners must select values for the variable before opening data forms. For example, if you create a user variable called Division, planners must select a division before working in the data form. The first time planners select a variable for a data form, they do so in preferences. After that, they can update the variable in preferences or in the data form.
To select user variables for data forms:
Create the data form (see Creating Simple Data Forms).
On Member Selection, select user variables the same way you select members, using the arrows to move substitution variables to and from Selected Members.
User variables are displayed for the current dimension. For example, user variables for the Entity dimension might display as follows:
Division = [User Variable]
When selected, a user variable is preceded by an ampersand. For example:
Idescendants(&Division)