Risks, limitations and known issues

These risks and limitations must be understood by report designers. No warnings or error messages are produced on incorrect use.

If you do not refresh the whole report, only changed values are transferred from the server to the web browser. This can improve performance, and avoid unwanted visual effects which can occur in some browsers. But there is a risk that the report displayed in the web will differ from the report on the server.

To avoid this, use the Action holder and None options only if the visible area of the report does not change when the action is executed.

If only some values change in the report, use the Custom option to specify a range of cells. For example, if the values of only cells M10, M11, N10 and N11 change when an action is executed, specify a range of M10:N11.
Note: If not all the affected cells are included in the range, problems will occur.

For example:

  • A set parameter action changes cells D1:D2 and X1:X2.
  • The report designer specifies the refresh range D1:D2.
  • When the action is executed only cells D1 and D2 are updated. The true state of the report is not displayed until the whole report is refreshed, either by execution of another action or by reloading the dashboard.

Limitations

Several visual properties of cells can be changed by the execution of an action. But not all these properties can be refreshed by the Refresh in web input.

This presents a risk if unsupported cell properties are used, for example, to highlight important data in a report.

Only these cell properties can be updated:

  • Background
  • Text
  • Text color
  • Text bold
  • Text italic
  • Text strikethrough
  • Underline
  • Graphic

The Refresh in web option is supported only on these cells:

  • Cells that contain only text
  • Cells that contain only graphics
  • Cells that contain actions

These cells cannot be refreshed with the Refresh option:

  • Cells that contain list objects
  • Cells that contain charts

Known issues

These examples describe known issues:

  • You have a short text that fits within a cell. You use an action to replace that text with a longer text. You refresh only the cell containing the short text. In Application Studio the column containing the cell expands to the width of the long text. But, in a dashboard, the cell does not expand and the text is cut off.
  • A cell contains value N, provided by a variable. An action changes the value of the variable to N+1. The refresh input option is None.

    When the action is executed in a dashboard the displayed value remains N. But if you export the report, the displayed value is N+1.

  • Cell B2 contains an empty string, provided by a variable. Cell C2 contains the formula =B2. An action changes the value of the variable to "TEXT". The refresh input option is Custom, and B2 is specified as the cell range .

    When the action is executed in a dashboard only cell B2 displays TEXT. This is correct. But, if you export the report, cells B2 and C2 both display TEXT. So, exporting a report overrides the Refresh in web input and recalculates the whole report.

  • Cell B2 contains the formula =A1. Cell A1 contains a Select Element action. The refresh input option is Action holder. The action is executed and an element is selected. Correctly, the selected element is displayed only in cell A1. The action is executed a second time, but no element is selected and Cancel is clicked.

    Cell B2 displays the element in A1. So, clicking Cancel in the Select Element dialog overrides the Action holder refresh input and recalculates the whole report.