Webi 4.1 on relational universe on HANA - old prompt values not cleared

Question

Hi,
We are having a problem with a Webi report built on a relational universe (.unx). IDT is vers 4.1 sp 2, Webi is 4.1 sp3.
The HANA View has optional date prompts. It works with a year/month range, or defaults if the prompts are empty
When the business layer was created in IDT the HANA View was run and certain prompts were entered
Now when previewing the data in IDT or opening the report in Webi, the prompts are always initially set to the original values when it was run in IDT (which are not the current defaults in HANA).
We have tried from the Webi perspective Data Access -> Purge -> Purge All (with the clear last selected prompts option selected), but the prompts come back. We have also tried rerunning in IDT with blank parameters, but the keep coming back there (that is the original values)
Any ideas on how to remove the prompts? We don't want the users to have to keep adding in prompts when they run the report (as there are a few HANA views included, each with their own prompts). It also prevents scheduling.
Thanks,
Ken

Answer 1

Hi Ken Palmer-Jones
Reading that document about variables on HANA, my suggestion would be to acquire control on those variables and parameters at the universe level, by building a derived table in the universe using this syntax
SELECT [Columns]
FROM <view> ('PLACEHOLDER' = ('$$<parameter_name>$$', <parameter value>))
WHERE <attribute name> = <filter value>
Input parameters defined in HANA are the ones in the FROM part of the statement and the variables comes in the WHERE part.
By using directly the table in IDT you don't see these prompts and can't modify them either.
So, if you build a derived table in the universe (foundation layer) with the syntax above and use that derived table for the universe you will get control over the parameters. Replace <parameter value> with a @prompt(prompt_name) statement where prompt_name is a prompt created in the universe with properties you can modify like 'keep last values' (this is the parameter that would do the trick of clearing those values out of the prompt). Make sure that option is not checked and it should work.
Also, by getting control on the prompts you should also be able to match the names of the prompts so they can be merged in webi when you use more than one universe, otherwise you'll get several prompts that mean the same but with different names.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Christian