Embedding Instructions into Prompts

Sometimes, prompts can be complicated either in usage or in business implications.  While we can leave some notes for the user in the prompt description, sometimes it would be nice to be able to do a little more than that space provides.  Thanks to a tip from reader Arnold Slabbekoorn, here’s a method for embedding a popup with additional information directly into the prompt itself.

The first thing you need to do is enable HTML Output in the Prompt Description.  You can find this setting in Web Server Configuration by logging in as the Administrator and navigating to the Security section.  This option is off by default.

The option you need to enable is the Prompt titles and descriptions.

This doesn’t actually have to be a document, and it could be any URL or wiki page.  For the purposes of this example though, I’m going to create a document that contains the information I want to display.

Edit the prompt you want to annotate navigate to the section for Instructions.

Add the following code to the Instructions box.

<a style="cursor:pointer;color=blue" onclick="window.open('Main.aspx?evt=2048001&src=Main.aspx.2048001&visMode=0&documentID=B1D168D64E5F81042390878DFDA74FD7&currentViewMedia=2&hiddenSections=dockTop', '', 'height=435,width=710');" >Click here for Instructions</a>

Results
The results look like this in Web:

And when you click on the blue Click here for Instructions …

Tips

1. If you’re using a Document like I am in this post, you can make it more seamless by removing the MicroStrategy toolbars.  See this post for more details on how to do that.
2. For more information on how to create the Javascript popup, check out this post.