• Attribute Element List prompt allows you to select a list of attribute elements to use as part of the filter criteria in a report.
• Attribute Qualification prompt allows you to specify a number of attribute qualifications that become part of the filter criteria in a report. If prompted for a date value, you can either type it in or select it from a calendar (if DHTML is on). To select a date from the calendar:
  • Click the calendar icon next to the prompt. A calendar appears. Click on a date to select it. To go to the next month, click the right arrow on the calendar. To go to the previous month, click the left arrow.
• Metric Qualification prompt allows you to specify a number of metric qualifications that become part of the filter criteria in a report.
• Hierarchical Attribute prompt allows you to specify conditions based on attributes and attribute elements selected from at least one hierarchy (a combination of an attribute element list prompt and an attribute form qualification prompt) to become part of the filter criteria in a report. 
• Value prompt allows you to specify a value of any data type, such as text, numeric values, big decimal values, or date to qualify on metrics, attribute descriptions, or attribute IDs. If prompted for a date value, you can either type it in or select it from a calendar (if DHTML is on). To select a date from the calendar:
  • Click the calendar icon next to the prompt. A calendar appears. Click on a date to select it. To go to the next month, click the right arrow on the calendar. To go to the previous month, click the left arrow.
• Object prompt allows you to select a set of objects to be placed on the template (attribute, metric, consolidation, template, or custom group) or filter(s) (or reports) to be used as the filter criteria in a report.
• Level prompt allows you to specify at run time the level of calculation for a metric. For example, you could design a report that shows sales totals by time and allow the user running the report to choose whether the totals are at the year level, or at the month level, or at the week level, and so on.

• Attribute Element List prompt: cart, check box, multiple select list box, single-select list box, option button, pull-down
• Attribute Qualification prompt: cart, option button, pull-down, single-select list box, text box, text file and shopping cart
  Note: A text file containing preselected prompt answers can be created for prompts of this type. The file is imported and can be used repeatedly for convenience. The file must be written in a specific format so that MicroStrategy Web can interpret it. To learn more about acceptable formats for these text files, refer to the Web SDK. The Web SDK is available in the MicroStrategy Developer Library, which is sold as part of the MicroStrategy SDK.
• Metric Qualification prompt: cart, text box, option button, pull-down, single-select list
• Hierarchical Attribute prompt: cart (optional search without qualification) , cart (required search with qualification), cart (optional search with qualification), cart (required search with qualification)
• Object prompt: cart, cart with hierarchical browsing, check box, multiple-select list box, single-select list box, option button, pull-down
• Value prompt: text box, calendar (DHTML only), check box, multiple select list box, single-select list box, option button, pull-down, 
• Level prompt: cart

• Cart style for object and element prompts supports incremental fetch (of objects or attribute elements) and search (within the prompt), while non-cart styles do not support these.
• Cart style for object prompts allows users to determine the object order as it appears on the template, while non-cart styles do not.
• Cart style for qualification prompts allows users to have multiple qualifications, while non-cart styles do not.

Required vs. optional prompts
An indication of whether the prompt is required or optional appears in each prompt title bar and also in the prompt index section when there is more than one prompt in a report or a HTML document. If a report contains a required prompt, you must answer the prompt before you can execute the report. A warning message appears when one or more required prompts are not answered. It is not necessary to answer optional prompts to execute a report.

Your administrator has the option to display all the required prompts first, before displaying any optional prompts, instead of displaying the prompts in their default order. Please contact your administrator to find out whether this option has been selected.

Prompt display
You have two choices of how to display the prompts in any given report, document, or HTML document. You can choose either to display all the prompts on one page, or to display each prompt on its own separate page. To make this selection, click on Preferences in the upper right hand toolbar. Then click on Prompts under User Preferences in the left toolbar. There are two radio button options in the first section called View Prompts. You can view the prompts either all on one page or each on a separate page. Make your selection and click the Apply button.

When prompts are displayed all on the same page, a Back to Top icon will be shown in the top right corner of each prompt. You can click this icon to return to the top of the page.

When prompts are displayed on separate pages, a Previous button (except on the first prompt) and a Next button (except on the last prompt) are provided to the left of the Run in View Mode button, for navigation between the different prompts. If any prompts have not been answered correctly when the Run in View Mode button is clicked, you will be brought to the page where the first problem occurred.

In both prompt display options, a prompt index is located to the left of the prompts. Each prompt is numbered, showing you how many prompts there are in that particular report, document, or HTML document. Clicking on the prompt number icon will bring you to that specific prompt (DHTML only). If each prompt is displayed on a separate page, the prompt index will show five prompts at a time, with two incremental fetch links at the bottom of the index: a small white triangle icon to fetch the next (or previous) five prompts, and a small underlined white triangle icon to fetch the last (or first) five prompts. In the prompt index, you will also find the prompt summary icon . To learn more about this feature, refer to Prompt summary.

Default answers for prompts
The report designer can specify default answers for each prompt in MicroStrategy Desktop. When you run a report that contains a prompt, the prompt is displayed with the default answers pre-selected. If there is a default answer, you can do one of the following:

• Accept the default answer.
• Add more criteria to the default answer.
• Clear all the default answers and make your own prompt selections.

• Value prompt: For text data type, the min/max value refers to the length of the input text. For date and numeric data types, the min/max value refers to the input value itself.
• Object prompt: The min/max value refers to the number of objects you are allowed to choose.
• Attribute element list prompt: The min/max value refers to the number of attribute elements you are allowed to select.
• Attribute form qualification, metric qualification, and hierarchical attribute prompts: The min/max value refers to the number of qualifications you are allowed to construct.

Note: Additional validation takes place for certain prompt styles. Refer to Prompt styles for more information.

Prompt summary
You can access the prompt summary by clicking the Summary of your selections icon on the prompt index (to the left of the prompt). The prompt summary displays all the prompts on one page, indicating which prompt(s) are required and which are optional. If there are default answers to a prompt, the default answers will be displayed along with that prompt. As you answer the prompts in a report, the prompt summary will be updated; therefore your most current prompt answer sets will be displayed.

You can execute the prompted report, document, or HTML document, or cancel the prompt from the summary page. Prompt validation is enforced on the prompt page, and will also be imposed on the prompt summary page.

You can visit the prompt summary page as many times as you want during the time you are answering the prompt(s).

View prompt details in report page
From within View mode, you can use the Prompt Details panel to view a summary of your prompt selections for the prompted report you currently have open.

In order for the Prompt Details option to be displayed, however, an Administrator must select the Display Prompt Details in Report Page option in the Prompts page within the Project Defaults.

To access the Prompt Details panel and view a summary of your prompt selections:

1. Open a prompted report in Grid, Graph, or Grid and Graph mode.
2. From the View menu, select Prompt Details. The Prompt Details panel displays above the report. If the Prompt Details option is not available in the View menu, the Administrator must enable the Display Prompt Details in Report Page option in the Project Defaults.

Re-answer prompts for reports and HTML documents
You can re-answer prompts for reports and HTML documents using the Re-prompt function, available only with reports and HTML documents that contain prompts.

To re-prompt a report or HTML document, click the Re-prompt icon  at the top of the page.

Cancel prompt
There is a Cancel button on the prompt page (located at the bottom right of the page). If you click Cancel when you run the prompt report for the first time, you are returned to the previous folder page. If you click Cancel after re-prompting, you are returned to the previous report or HTML document page. The Cancel button on the Prompt Summary page works in the same way.

DHTML optimization
Browsers such as Netscape 4, Internet Explorer 4 and later versions (currently Netscape 7.2 and Internet Explorer 6), MicroStrategy Web provides a DHTML on/off setting. This setting optimizes the prompt functionality (for prompts in prompt cart styles only) as follows:

• It speeds up adding and removing items between the available selections and the selected items.
• It anchors the prompt currently being answered. In other words, the page will not reposition to the top each time you answer a prompt.

• an object prompt that contains a search object (not a predefined list)
• an attribute element prompt that contains either the full list of elements or a specific filter (not a predefined list)
• a metric qualification prompt that contains a search (not an attribute qualification that contains a search)
• an attribute element list within a hierarchical attribute prompt

• Sometimes, MicroStrategy Web does not display the search field. This means that there is already a search object in the prompt, and the prompt selection list is already filtered.
• Case sensitivity depends on the setting in the database that contains the prompt information.
• For object prompts of cart with hierarchical browsing style, when you enter search criteria, MicroStrategy Web searches recursively under the current folder, and returns all matched objects in the current folder and all subfolders under it (much like a search within a normal cart style).
• After performing a search in cart with hierarchical browsing style, the hierarchical capability is disabled (browsing up and down the folders using the gray arrows does not bring back subfolder contents). To return to the hierarchical browsing mode, you must empty the search field and click the search icon.

• To search with case-sensitivity, select the Match case check box. This works only if your system (warehouse database) supports this feature. If it is not supported, you can still select the check box, but the search will not be case sensitive.
• There is no search capability for attributes with the date or time as the data type.
• If you enter a text string that does not include wildcards, MicroStrategy Web uses the like operator and adds wildcards at the beginning and the end.
• To return a complete list of elements that start with the same few words, use an underscore between each word. For example, you want to search for all companies whose names start with 'Professional Coop' to return every available result. These results might range from 'Professional Cooperative B' to 'Professional Cooperative Delta.' In order to return every company whose name starts with 'Professional Coop,' you must enter the following search string: Professional_Coop

For more information on search syntax and an example of searching on an attribute, see Search syntax.

Operators for qualification prompts
MicroStrategy Web supports the following operators for attribute qualification prompts:

• between (value1; value2)
• not between (value1; value2)
• = (exactly)
• <> (not exactly)
• > (greater than)
• >= (greater than or equal)
• < (less than)
• <= (less than or equal)
• like
• not like
• in (value1; value2;...;valueN)

• between (value1; value2)
• not between (value1; value2)
• = (exactly)
• <> (not exactly)
• > (greater than)
• >= (greater than or equal to)
• < (less than)
• <= (less than or equal to)
• highest (rank)
• lowest (rank)
• highest %
• lowest %
• in (value1; value2;...;valueN)

• Between and not between expect two values separated by a semicolon.
• In expects a list of values separated by a semicolon.
• When using like, if you type in a string without a wildcard, MicroStrategy Web adds a wildcard to the beginning and the end of the string.
• When using highest % and lowest %, the percent sign is not required.
  Note: Any number you enter is regarded as the percentage, so 0.5 becomes 0.5%, not 50%.

• The input file must be a text file.
• The text file can be generated from a text editor or a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel. Since each of these programs generates different file extensions, MicroStrategy Web provides the ability to indicate which file extension is being used. This is a Project Default setting that only the administrator can modify.
• The file should include the elements to be included as answers to the prompt. These elements must be in accordance with the attribute form selected in the Attribute section of the prompt. For example, the file can include different years which can be used to resolve a prompt on Year.
• You must use either a semicolon (;) or a carriage return to separate each prompt answer. 
  Semicolons can be used in the following format: 2000;2001;2002;2003
  Carriage returns can be used in the following format:
  
  2000
  2001
  2002
  2003