1. Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
  2. Defining Members
  3. Assigning Members
  4. Working with Substitution Variables and User Variables

Working with Substitution Variables and User Variables

Substitution variables are variables that are defined at the EPM Cloud or Essbase data source that serves as a placeholder for specific members that change regularly.

In the EPM cloud, you can set user variables to limit the number of members displayed on a report, helping users focus on certain members. For example, if you create a user variable called Division for the Entity dimension, users can select a member for their own division.

You can use the variable CurrMonth to represent the current month (Jan), and you can insert it as a member selection in a report. Create variables at the data source by creating the variable and the string value. You can then change the value of the variable at the data source at any time.

When you select members for a grid, the member selector displays the substitution and user variables that are available for the selected dimension. Both the variable name and the value are displayed for grid columns, rows, and point of view (POV). Variables are prefixed with an "&" (for example, &CurrMonth).

Some considerations when working with substitution and user variables:

  • You can use variables as member selections within other member selection functions, just as you would use a regular member. For example, "Children (&CurrentQuarter)".

  • You can enable report previewers to select variables in POV selections.

  • Variable values are retrieved when the system first connects to the data source. The member selector and/or POV will display the Variable’s value. When running a Report, the latest Variable value will be retrieved. However, if a Variable value changes during a user’s session, then the change will not be reflected in the Variable value displayed in the member selector or POV, until the user reconnects to a new session by logging out and logging in again.

  • For Reports reference doclets in a report package, you can select variables from the member selector.

Note:

  • Substitution variable values that are surrounded by quotes (for example: "Net Income") are not supported in Narrative Reporting. Only substitution variable values that are not surrounded by quotes are visible in the Narrative Reporting member selector.

  • Substitution Variable names that are surrounded with quotes (for example: "Current Month") in the data source are not supported in Reports. Reports only supports Substitution Variable names that are not surrounded by quotes (for example: Current Month).

  • Only Substitution Variable values with a member name are visible in the member selector. Substitution Variable values with member aliases will not appear.

  • User variables with multiple members defined for the variable value will only display the first value in the member selector.