Advanced Techniques: How Dashboard Prompts and Analysis Prompts Interact

You can combine dashboard prompts and analysis prompts to quickly display precise, meaningful data.

There are various ways that you can combine prompts.

Wiring Method	Description
Auto wiring	Auto wiring assumes that you intended to create a functioning prompt for the column and, therefore, activates and applies the prompt. Auto wiring is applied when you create an analysis and add a column prompt. This method doesn’t require the is prompted filter operator. Any unprotected filter can be used. Setting the filter operator to is prompted provides a more precise level of control between prompts and filters than the auto wiring method. See the "Filter operator is set to is prompted" row in this table.
Constrained prompts	Use this method with several columns in a prompt to constrain the user's prompt choice based on subsequent choices. Constrained prompts can be set up on the Prompt options dialog to specify which prompt narrows the choices. For example, suppose one column filters on region and the next column filters on city. Then, the city column can be constrained to show only cities in the selected region.
Filter operator is set to is Prompted.	Use this method to build complex prompts that interact with filters. When you use this method, you have full control over how the dashboard prompts, inline prompts, and filters apply to the embedded analysis. See About Prompted Filters.
Selection Steps Override with Prompts Option	Use this method to use an analysis or dashboard column prompt to provide the data choices for a specific member selection step. Because you can’t use filters with hierarchical columns, selection steps are the only way that you can use prompts with hierarchical columns. Only one selection step per column selection step set can be overridden with a prompt. All selection steps before and after the overridden step are processed as specified. See Refining Selections of Data and Overriding a Selection Step with a Prompt.
Protected versus Unprotected filters	Use this method to determine whether the dashboard prompt can supply the inline prompt's value when the corresponding column's filter value is set to something other than Is prompted. The unprotected and protected filter settings can be used when a dashboard prompt and inline prompt reside on the same dashboard. Also, both prompts must have been created for the same column. When the column's filter value is unprotected, the dashboard prompt value determines the analysis' results. Suppose the filter value is set to something other than Is prompted (for example, Is equal to/is in) and the filter is set to protected filter. Then, the dashboard prompt can’t determine the report results.