Hello,

I would like to see if anyone has ran across this reporting issue.  I have two objects in my model, Servers and Websites.  Today these objects have no relationship in the model.  However, the Websites object does have a column with the Server Name.  Currently these objects have different allocation strategies from each object up the model and this is why the Website object does not allocate to the Server object.  With out creating an allocation between these objects, is there a way to using a slicer or global filter to filter the server name on both tables in a report.  The Server Name is in both datasets with the same column name.

I afraid I may need to create an allocation between these two objects, but would like to leave this as a last resort since this allocation would only exist for reporting purpose and not be used in allocation further up the model.

Thanks,

Jeff

A normal report slicer can refer to only one model object at a time, so you'd need two of these on your report. And both would be called Server Name and have similar values, so this might confuse your users a little.

A compact slicer (introduced in version 11.5) may not help much in this case. It lets you combine multiple slicers into one report component, but it would still require two slicers, one for each of your Servers and Websites objects.

Global filters are being phased out with the introduction of global compact slicers, but this doesn't solve your issue either.

Unless your two model objects know about each other's Server Name value (via inference or some other mechanism), there won't be a way to condense the two report slicers or filters down to just one, even if the two backing data tables share the same column name ("Server Name").

But - ideally, none of the above would matter. If your model is set up in such a way that each website knows its specific server(s), and if this information can be retained as its cost moves to other model objects (e.g. via 1-to-1 data-based reference using Server Name within the key column), then drilling down from Servers to Websites in a report table would then only show websites associated with whichever server(s) were filtered on. Only one slicer or filter needed in this case.

@Chris Davidson: that only works when you want to drill from one report to another. The question (I believe) is the same one I was trying to solve in my question titled "Cross-object Slicer." Ideally you could show a single report with tables from multiple objects and filter based on some common field.

As Chris mentioned, in order for a single slicer to work for both, the two objects must be connected on the model or share a common object lower in the model. The common object would need to contain the field you want to slice on too.

John,  must they be connected via allocation in the model, or can they be connected via inference without the allocation?