Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 12-2.
Configuring a URL action
To build the URL string, enter the code from Listing 12-1 into the Action Expression textbox.
Listing 12-1.
An Action Expression Example
"http://www.bing.com/search?q=" + [DimTitles].[Title].CurrentMember.Member_Caption
You can test the action in Excel. This example action functions as follows: when a value is clicked in an
Excel report, a web browser launches and passes the action expression as a URL address string. The string in our
example uses the
Member_Caption
property to extract a title name and passes it onto the website
www.bing.com
.
This works well as long as the string you send matches the format required by the receiving web server. Our
current example works for Bing; it will not work for Google, because Google requires a different query string
format in the URL. If you adjust it to match Google's requirement, however, it will work for that site as well.
Another, and perhaps more powerful option, is to pass queried data to a custom ASP.NET application. Using
this option, you can create your own custom ASP.NET application that uses the string data to launch custom
reports or perform additional actions.
To launch a URL action in Excel, begin by creating a pivot table report that accesses your cube. Then create
a result that includes measures and the dimensional attribute your action is associated with. In our case, that is
the Titles dimension and the Title attribute. Next, right-click the measure cell and select the Additional Actions
option from the context menu. Finally, choose which action you want to launch (Figure
12-3
).
