Portal Parameter Best Practice

Question

Hi there,
I would like to get suggestions/samples/documention on the best way to use parameters in the portal. My objective would be a way to standardize our approach to Parameters/LOV's for our portal, that would interact with Discoverer Portlets, Omni Portlet, Report Builder Portlet and Form Builder Portlets. We will want to use a mechanism that will allow us to build a dymanic LOV based on SQL, and pass into the page parameters. Our only current solution is that we use a simple parameter form with a static LOV, and pass those to the page parameters, which then pass through to Discoverer. This definitely will not scale. Any direction here would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tim

Answer 1

Hi Tim: Here's my basic approach for this -- I create either a portal dynamic page or a stored procedure that renders an HTML parameter form. You can connect to the database and render what ever sort of drop downs, check boxes, etc you desire. To tie everything together, just make sure when you create the form, the names of the fields match that of the page parameters created on the page. This way, when the form posts to the same page, it appends the values for the page parameters to the URL.
By coding the entire form yourself, you avoid the inherent limitations of the simple parameter form. You can also use advanced JavaScript to dynamically update the drop downs based on the values selected or can cause the form to be submitted and update the other drop downs from the database if desired.
Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this forum to give you full technical details, but that is the approach I have used on a number of portal sites. Hope it helps!
Rgds/Mark M.