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Configure Linking

Commonly referred to as drilling, linking is a way of connecting one or more inquiries together. Linked inquiries may provide a more detailed view of a record, a summary view of a record, or an alternate view of the same information. With linking, you can cross Modules (e.g. General Ledger to Accounts Receivable) or stay within the same Module. Links can connect to existing inquiries or they can connect to standard templates. The inquiry you link from is the “source” inquiry and the inquiry you are linking to is the “destination” or “target” inquiry.

You can have more than one link in an inquiry. Many standard templates include default links, but you can edit or remove these as well as add your own links. Links are completely configurable; when defining

the link and choosing the values to pass from the source inquiry to the target inquiry, you can map any source column filter to the target filter.

Linked inquiries follow all the same Permission rules as a regular inquiry; if required, Permissions would also need to be granted to the linked inquiries.

There are two ways to execute a link:

  1. Right-click on a cell and go to Follow Links to choose the link you wish to use.
  2. Double-click on a cell to use the default link.

Creating a Link

Create Links: JDE Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite ERPs

Note: The procedure for creating links if you are using the SAP ERP is different - see after this topic for details.

To create a link, follow the below steps.

  1. From the Design menu in the Setup group, click Linked Inquiries to open the Linked Inquiries dialog.

  2. Click New to open the Create a New Link dialog.

  3. To edit an existing link, select it from the list in the Linked Inquiries dialog and click Edit to open the Update a Link dialog, which displays the current details of the link.
    Follow the instructions given for the Create a New Link dialog.

  4. In the Create a New Link dialog, enter a Name that is descriptive of the link.
  5. Click Select Target.
  6. Navigate to and select the saved inquiry or template to which you wish to link.
  7. Click OK to return to the Create a New Link dialog.
  8. Click Select Fields.
  9. Within the Define Link Inquiry Pass Values dialog, all columns in the source report are listed in the left panel and the columns in the target report are listed in the right panel:

  10. For each column, you can see the Report Column name, table, and field name. You can sort by any of these by clicking on the column header.
  11. To link columns between the reports, first select the column in the source report and then select the column in the target report.
  12. Click Add to link the 2 elements/columns together. The link now appears in the bottom panel of the dialog:

  13. Multiple source columns may be selected by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key while clicking on them (e.g., as with the standard Windows multiple selection facility).
    When using this method of creating links, you may do select the target columns yourself. As source columns are selected, the equivalent target columns in the target report are automatically selected:

    Once the required source columns are selected, click Add. If there were any source columns selected that do not have equivalent target columns, and therefore could not be linked, a message will be displayed to explain this.

    Links for the other columns are added to the bottom panel:

  14. Continue steps 10 to 12 for all columns you wish to link.
  15. Once links have been added, you can edit or delete them as needed by selecting the link in the bottom panel and clicking Edit or Delete
  16. If editing, you will need to select the two fields you want to link. When Edit is clicked, the Edit Advanced Link (DX) Pass Value dialog is therefore displayed:

    Select the source and target columns as described above, and then click OK.

  17. Note that in the Link Elements list, mark the checkbox under the Append To Filters column if you wish to add the value of that specific column from the destination report to the source report. If you wish to replace the value of that specific column from the destination report to the source report, leave this unchecked. (For example, if you have the AA ledger in the Ledger filter of the source report and the BA ledger in the Ledger filter of the destination report, marking the checkbox would result in both ledger types in the destination report. Leaving it unchecked results in the AA ledger filter value replacing the BA ledger filter value in the destination report.)
  18. Click OK to return to the Create a New Link or Update a Link dialog.
  19. Select a Special Link if required (see below).
  20. Click OK to return to the Linked Inquiries dialog.
  21. Click OK to return to your inquiry.
  22. Save/re-save the inquiry to save the link definitions to the repository.

Other options in the Linked Inquiries dialog:

  • Edit – edit an existing link
  • Remove – delete an existing link
  • OK – return to your inquiry
  • Cancel – return to your inquiry without saving any changes/additions made within the dialog

Note: When all of the links have been defined in the source inquiry, you must re-save the inquiry so the new or edited links are saved in the repository.

Default Links

The default link, which is the last link that was used in the inquiry, can be recognized these ways:

  1. When you right-click on a cell and go to Follow Links, it is the one with a checkmark next to it.
  2. If configured, it will display on the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen:

Special Links

Special Links are provided for situations, such as with Time Series, hierarchies, and aging calculations where the fields being passed are not enough for the business requirement. Special links vary by template as the functionality is different between templates.

To enable special links, follow the steps below:

  1. From the Design menu in the Setup group, click on Linked Inquiries.
  2. Highlight the link for which you wish to set a special link.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. Enable the special link by selecting the checkbox next to the appropriate one.

Special Links for GL Balances

The Special Links in the GL Balances template are:

  1. Convert Time Series Values – passes only the specific Time Series column you are drilling from into the target inquiry. So if you have periods 1-3 in the source inquiry but you click on period 2, it only brings up period 2 in the target inquiry. The target inquiry is not required to include the same Time Series as the source inquiry. (In fact, you typically drill to an inquiry without the Time Series so the Time Series would be converted to a period or a date range). You must include the period and year as pass values.
  2. Transfer Time Series Point – passes the item you drilled on as well as the other items in the Time Series to the target inquiry. With this option, the target inquiry is required to include the same Time Series as the source inquiry. Additionally, the dimensions of the Time Series should not be passed when linking.
  3. Grid Hierarchy Transition - transfers the grid hierarchy selections to the target inquiry. The inquiry is required to include the same grid hierarchy. Additionally, the dimensions of the hierarchy will be passed by the grid hierarchy transition function and therefore should be removed from the list of selected pass values.
  4. Project Business Unit - this option transfers the Business Unit value(s) to Project Business Unit in the target inquiry. This is used when linking to the Job Cost Module.

Note: If required to have a Time Series or hierarchy object in both the source and target inquiries, it is especially helpful to have the object in RIO, Reusable Inquiry Objects, so you don’t have to create it in both inquiries. Then any changes to the object will automatically be updated in both places.

Notes on Special Links

Links and Selectors - You can pass selectors to linked inquiries. If the target inquiry contains the same selector as the source inquiry, the selector value and the selector name are passed properly. If the target inquiry does not contain the same selector as the source inquiry, the selector value is still passed but the selector name is not.

Links and Aging Calculations - A special link is available, Transfer Aging Category Start/End Dates, which can be used to pass the Report Start Date and End Date Aging variables to Drill To reports with the same Aging Calculation defined.

Linking to External Document or Webpage

You can link to an external document or webpage from within Hubble. After creating a hyperlink to link to the external source object or webpage, you create a link within our product. Then within your inquiry, you can execute the link to the external document or webpage.

Linking Setup

Step 1: Create the hyperlink to the external object or the external webpage.

  1. To access the Create/Edit Hyperlink dialog, you can do either of the following:
    1. From Hubble Administrator: Under the Documents folder, right-click on the appropriate folder and select New > Hyperlink.
    2. From Hubble: Go to Manage Folders on the Home menu, right-click on the appropriate folder in the Manage Folders dialog and select New > Hyperlink.
  2. Enter a name for the hyperlink.
  3. Enter a description for the hyperlink.
  4. Within the URL field, create a template that describes the hyperlink structure. The best way to do this is to copy and paste the URL from the external source document or webpage.

Step 2: Create the link.

  1. Go to Design > Linked Inquiries > New to create a new link.
  2. Enter a name for the link.
  3. Click Select Target, navigate to the hyperlink previously created, and select it.
  4. Click Select Fields, where you will map the specific fields in your ERP system to the variables in the hyperlink.

Step 3: Execute the link

Within the inquiry, right-click on the particular item and follow the link to the specific link you have created.

Example: Linking to the Google Maps to find a customer address

  1. First create the hyperlink. In the URL to Google Maps we have 4 variables, Address, City, State and Zip, each identified by the brackets (< and >) around them:

  2. By following the test example link, we have confirmed that this URL brings up the correct map for a specific address.
  3. Next create a new link within the inquiry. For the Target, select the hyperlink that was just created.

    .

  4. When selecting fields, map the placeholders/variables to the specific fields in your ERP system:

  5. Now from a row in the inquiry results, execute the link:

  6. In this example, your default web browser will open to Google Maps, and the map to this specific address will display:

Import an Inquiry with a Hyperlink

Export - First the person exporting the inquiry must export it through Administrator and must export both the hyperlink object as well as the inquiry in the RDF. (This is done by highlighting both the hyperlink and the inquiry, right-clicking, choosing Export, and then saving the RDF.)

Import - The person importing the inquiry will import both of these objects within Administrator. In order to use the hyperlink within the report, the user must go to Select Target for that link and select the hyperlink object.

Specific steps to do this within Administrator:

  1. Go to the Import/Export folder.
  2. Choose Open File.
  3. Navigate to where the RDF is saved and select it.
  4. Within the Import/Export folder, select the Documents folder.
  5. Select both the hyperlink object and the inquiry, and move them to the appropriate location under the Documents folder (whether it is a specific user's folder or another folder).
  6. Verify the correct permissions are granted (at minimum, the Read Permissions) for both objects.
  7. Clear the Import/Export folder (select the folder and click Clear on the Import/Export menu).

Specific steps to do this within Hubble:

  1. Open the inquiry.
  2. From the Design menu, go to Linked Inquiries.
  3. Select the hyperlink and click Edit.
  4. Click Select Target.
  5. Navigate to the location the hyperlink has been saved (step 5 above), select it, and click OK.
  6. In the Update a Link dialog, click OK.
  7. In the Linked Inquiries dialog, click OK.
  8. Save the inquiry.