Monday, January 5, 2015

Adding Rows to the Management Reporter Dimension Window

First, an acknowledgement.  This issue only comes up in scenarios where users of Management Reporter have very complex equations on a single row.

A client recently ran into a problem with Management Reporter, I’ve only seen once before. I couldn't find my notes on this problem, so I had to rework the solution. Now I’ve had to resolve it again, I thought I would save anyone with the same issue the time.   Here’s an overview of the issue and resolution.  I hope you might find this helpful.

What's the best way to add new rows within the Management Reporter Dimensions window? In this window, you can define the rows, segments and other dimensions included in a row format.  The problem is, after you put in a few lines, you seem to run out of room.   The good news, is you’re not out of room, it’s just the interface is poorly designed - Microsoft really should do something about this... wink




You will notice at the top of the window, similar to Excel, you have a Cell field, which shows the extended “equation”.  You can enter additional information into the Cell, and it will create new lines in the Dimension window, so you can continue to add unlimited lines in this window.  

For example, I added accounts one by one, into the window (1500, 1600, 1700… until I ran out of room.  I then went to the equation cell and added manually +Segment1 = [1800], and when I opened the Dimension window, there was a new line with +Segment1 = [1800].  I was then able to edit this line to include any dimension I wanted.  

So, you have two options, use the example of a similar dimension to manually add the specific dimension you want to add, or use a very basic “dummy” input to add new rows for editing.