Creating Parameters

1. Go into the Report Layout Editor under the Home tab.
   
   
   
2. In the Field List, right click on Parameters and select Add Parameter...
   
   
   
3. Enter a name, description (optional), and data type for your parameter. Make sure that "Show in the parameters panel" is checked.
   
4. In this example, we'll be creating a date range for CUST_ORDER_LINE.DESIRED_SHIP_DATE. Under Value Source, select Range Parameters (which is exclusive to certain data types, such as dates), and you can optionally set the beginning and end of the date range to whatever default value or expression you'd like.
   
   
   
5. Click OK. Now under Parameters in the field list, you should see the parameters you created.
   
   

Linking Parameters to Data Fields

1. Open the Report Tasks popup by clicking the little square with the arrow at the top right of the report design area.
   
2. Open up the Filter String editor window by clicking the ellipsis.
   
   
   
3. In this editor window, you can edit the filter using the logic tree editor at the top or the plaintext editor at the bottom. Let's start with the logic tree editor and add two conditions by clicking the plus sign.
   
   
   
4. Click on the orange column name and select DESIRED_SHIP_DATE for both. Then click on the operator and select "Is greater than or equal to" for one and "Is less than or equal to" for the other.
   
   
   
5. You should see the filter string being built in the bottom part of the window. All that's left to do is add our parameters, DesiredShipDate_Start and DesiredShipDate_End. Put your cursor in the plaintext editor directly after the first question mark and start typing the name of the DesiredShipDate_Start parameter. You should see a list of column names, parameters, and functions appear; you can click the parameter in that list to auto-complete it.
   
   
   
6. Do the same thing on the second question mark, this time selecting DesiredShipDate_End as the parameter. Your FilterString editor window should look like this:
   
   
   
7. Click OK and rerun the Report, submitting any two date values of your choice again. This time, you should only see values ranging from the start date to the end date.
   
   

Displaying Parameter Values in the Report

1. Drag the DesiredShipDate_Start and DesiredShipDate_End parameters into your top margin.
   
   
   
2. Technically you could be done at this point, but let's add some labels to clarify what these values mean to people who read the Report.
   
   
   
3. Run the report one more time, and you should see the date range you submit appear in the top-right of the report.