The results of an existing report can be used as a filter for another report. You can use the first report itself as a filter inside a new report. This type of filter is called a shortcut-to-a-report qualification.
For example, you have a Basic Revenue report. Without a filter, this report shows all revenue for all regions and all products you carry. Next, you use your Revenue By Brand report as a filter within the Basic Revenue report. With its new filter, the Basic Revenue report now displays the revenue generated only for those brands specified in the results of the Revenue By Brand report.
You can also use a report as a filter and then add additional qualifications to expand the overall filter definition. For example, you can take the result set of one report showing all customers in the Southwest region, place that result set as a filter into a new report, and add a new filter qualification for active customers in the current year. The new report displays all currently active customers in the Southwest region.
This approach shows you the value of creating some basic, relatively simple reports in your project. Then you can make use of these basic reports within shortcut-to-a-report filters to make the filter creation process quicker.
To be used as a shortcut-to-a-report qualification, a report cannot contain any of the following objects or be of any of the following report types:
Consolidations
Custom groups
Data mart reports
MDX cube reports: Reports that draw their data from an MDX cube source such as SAP Business Intelligence Warehouse (SAP-BI), Microsoft Analysis Services (MSAS), or Hyperion Essbase (Essbase).
If you have MicroStrategy OLAP Services, be aware that a report's view definition does not affect how the report is used in a shortcut-to-a-report qualification. A report's data definition is the query that is sent to your database to retrieve information for the report, whereas the report's view definition determines how much of the retrieved information is displayed in the report. When you use a report as a filter, the report's entire data definition is considered; any view definitions do not influence the filter conditions. For information on the MicroStrategy OLAP Services product, see the MicroStrategy OLAP Services Guide.
On the project's main page, click Create Filter. The New Filter page opens.
In the pane on the left, navigate to the report you want to use as a filter.
Right-click the report and select Add to Filter.
If DHTML is disabled, select the report and click Add > to add the report to the Filter panel.
From the File menu, select Save As. The Save As dialog box opens.
Navigate to the folder where you want to save the filter. Enter a Name and Description for the filter, and click OK. Your new filter is saved.
The filter you created can now be added to a report. For steps, see Adding a stand-alone filter to a report.