Create a Report that Prompts Users for Selection Criteria

You may not always know what records your users want to see. If that's the case, why not have QuickBase ask them? You can create a report that prompts users to enter selection criteria for one or more fields. After a user selects the report, QuickBase presents a dialog box like the one shown below.

In this case, QuickBase prompts the user to select a Company.
The user can select <other> to type in another value or choose <anything> to see contacts for all companies.

After a user types in a value or makes a selection from a dropdown list, QuickBase displays the report you design, but includes only the records that the user specifies.

What a talented report! Yes, but you create it the same way you'd create any other report. In addition, any type of report can prompt the user.

To create a report that prompts users to select or enter filtering criteria:

1. Create or edit the report you want to prompt users.

2. In the Filtering section, select Show only records that meet certain criteria.

3. Select the field whose value the user will choose.
   
   From the drop-down list on the left, select the field you want the user to fill in.

4. In the second column, select an operator.

   The value you choose here qualifies the value that the user will enter. For example, Date is or Date is on or before are very different qualifiers. Whatever value you select will show to the user in their prompt so they know exactly the report will return. (Read more about operators.)

5. Tell QuickBase to ask the user.
   
   The type of field you chose in Step 3 determines your move in the Filtering section's third column.

   • If you chose a text type field, enter either _ask1_ or <ask the user>.

   • 
     Type in _ask1_ for a text type field.

   • If you chose any type of multiple-choice field, select <ask the user> from the drop-down list.

     
     In a dropdown field, select <ask the user>.

Prompting for Multiple Fields

Can't stop at just one? No problem. When you have QuickBase ask users for multiple values, you give you colleagues more tools with which to hone results:

  
Click the plus sign icon to add another value to ask the user about.

A report that prompts the user for information in multiple fields looks like the one show in the following image.

Tip: As with any filtering or search operation, your users can search for records that match any of the words they enter. To do so, just separate the entries with the word OR (must be capitalized). For example, to find all issues that are "urgent" or "critical," you would enter Urgent OR Critical, as shown below:

If you want to search for any of a few values within
a dropdown field, select <other>. In the field that appears,
type in each value separated by OR (must be capitalized).