Extracting custom fields in the new reporting module

The custom fields associated with a project or with a customer are displayed in the Project Custom Fields and the Customer Custom Fields column and are separated by |. To display each custom field associated with a project or a customer on a separate column, you must map the default custom field placeholders with the custom field of your choice.

About this task

There are 5 default custom field placeholders for the custom fields associated with a project, namely Project Custom Field 1 to Project Custom Field 5. There are 2 default custom field placeholders for the custom fields associated with a customer, namely Customer Custom Field 1 and Customer Custom Field 2. To display each custom field associated with a project or a customer on a separate column, you must map the default custom field placeholders with the custom field of your choice.

You can extract custom fields as separate columns either by mapping the custom field placeholders to the actual custom fields via parameters, or by applying a calculated field. If you have more than 5 custom fields associated with your project or more than 2 custom fields associated with your customer, either contact your account representative to have the limit increased or use a calculated field to extract as many custom fields as needed, as a separate column.

Procedure

  1. Open an analysis and open a data set which contains either the Projects dimension or the Customers dimension.
  2. To map the custom field placeholders to the actual custom fields via parameters:
    1. Select Parameters.Parameters icon in custom reports
    2. Under Dataset Parameters, select a custom field placeholder, for example either projectCustomField1 or customerCustomField1. From the context menu, select Create new.
    3. In the Create new parameter dialog, under Static default value enter the actual name of the custom field associated with a project or with a customer. Under Name enter the name of the column where your custom field will be shown. Select Create and then select Close.
    4. Check the newly mapped custom field under Parameters and check the custom field displayed as a separate column in the table. If you want to edit the name of the table column, from the context menu of the column header, select Properties Properties in custom reports, and in the right-hand side panel, scroll till you get to the custom field name, edit it, and save your changes.
    5. To map another custom field, select another custom field placeholder and repeat steps 2.b-2.d.
  3. To map the custom field placeholders to the actual custom fields via a calculated field:
    1. Have the following calculated field (formula) at hand: ifelse(locate({Custom Fields}, "field_name") > 0, split(split(substring({Custom Fields}, locate({Custom Fields}, "field_name"), strlen({Custom Fields})), ' | ', 1), "=", 2), 'N/A')
    2. Select CALCULATED FIELD.calculated field in custom reports
    3. In the dialog, enter a name for your calculated field. The name of the calculated field is the column name.
    4. Copy and paste the formula. Then, replace field_name with the actual name of the custom field you created. Then, replace Custom Fields either with Project Custom Fields or Customer Custom Fields, depending on the entity you associated your custom field with. Select Save.
    5. In your data set, identify the newly added calculated field. Calculated field are preceded by an icon represented by two parallel lines.
    6. Select the calculated field, select the Visualize icon and check the calculated field in your table as a column.
    7. To map another custom field, add another calculated field.