About User Variables

User variables act as filters in forms, enabling users to focus only on certain members, such as a department. Before you can associate a user variable with a form, you must create the user variable. When you create forms with user variables, users must first select values in preferences for the variable before opening forms. Afterward, users can change the variable on the form only if it's a dynamic user variable. Otherwise, they must continue to set the variable in preferences. For example, if you create a user variable called Division, users must select a division before working in the form.

Tip:

Attributes are another way to filter forms. But instead of explicitly filtering by an attribute (like Red), you can create a user variable for the attribute dimension, and then use the user variable as the filter. Then you can enable the user variable as a dynamic user variable which allows users to change the value of the filter at runtime. This is a useful technique that allows for dynamic filtering.

The first time users select a variable for a form, they must do so in preferences. After that, they can update the variable in preferences or in the form. For information about selecting user variables as members, see Selecting User Variables as Members.