Example: Using Constant Selection with MultiProviders 

Use

You can use the constant selection to solve MultiProvider problems.

For example, you have a MultiProvider that contains data from the following InfoCubes:

InfoCube 1

Plant	Product	Price
101	Candy Tin	0,12
101	Coffee Mug	0,14
102	Candy Tin	0,11
103	Mouse Pad	0,23
104	Post-It Set	0,15

InfoCube 2

Plant	Product	Customer	Quantity
101	Candy Tin	Dawson Agency Inc	100
101	Coffee Mug	Acadia Transfer Inc	110
102	Candy Tin	Evans Hotel Inc	105
103	Mouse Pad	Thompson Inc	115
104	Post-It Set	Bear Express Co Inc	110

Since characteristic Customer is contained in InfoCube 2 but not in InfoCube 1, in a drilldown according to Customer, all data from InfoCube 1 is displayed under initial value # (not assigned). The query would look as follows on the MultiProvider:

Query Based on This MultiProvider

Plant	Product	Customer	Price	Quantity
101	Candy Tin	# (not assigned)	0,12	0
101	Candy Tin	Dawson Agency Inc	0	100
101	Coffee Mug	# (not assigned)	0,14	0
101	Coffee Mug	Acadia Transfer Inc	0	110
102	Candy Tin	# (not assigned)	0,11	0
102	Candy Tin	Evans Hotel Inc	0	105
103	Mouse Pad	# (not assigned)	0,23	0
103	Mouse Pad	Thompson Inc	0	115
104	Post-It Set	# (not assigned)	0,15	0
104	Post-It Set	Bear Express Co Inc	0	110

You can now define a constant selection on Customer and exclude initial value # (not assigned) in the filter. This filters out the rows with initial value # (not assigned). The data about key figure Price is retained, however.

Procedure

...

       1.      In the Query Designer, define a selection that contains key figure Price and characteristic Customer.

       2.      Restrict characteristic Customer to initial value # (not assigned).

       3.      Set the constant selection on characteristic Customer.

       4.      In the default values of the filter on characteristic Customer, exclude initial value #.

Instead of using the constant selection, you can also solve this MultiProvider problem using InfoSets.

InfoSets are defined in the data model, however, and are very dynamic. Using the constant selection that you set in the Query Designer, you can set the join of the data records very flexibly to any InfoObject that is part of a selection for each query based on a MultiProvider.

Result

In the drilldown, the rows with initial value # (not assigned) on characteristic Customer are grayed out, but the data about key figure Price is retained. The query looks like this:

Query Based on the MultiProvider with Constant Selection on Customer

Plant	Product	Customer	Price	Quantity
101	Candy Tin	Dawson Agency Inc	0,12	100
101	Coffee Mug	Acadia Transfer Inc	0,14	110
102	Candy Tin	Evans Hotel Inc	0,11	105
103	Mouse Pad	Thompson Inc	0,23	115
104	Post-It Set	Bear Express Co Inc	0,15	110