Adding Mouse hover text on column Rows/data in OBIEE 11g

Creating a report that contains HTML links or mouse hover is quite easy now. You can even “parameterize” the HTML link to include values from other columns on a row by row basis. For example, if you have a product column, and wish to create a column containing a URL which will redirect the user to a Google search using the Product  value as the keyword, here are the steps to implement it in OBI report :

1.     Create a report, and add any column

2.     Choose the Edit Formula for that column

3.     Enter in HTML using OBIEE syntax, such as this in formula area:

a)   to add hyper link:
‘<a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=’ || Products.Name || ‘&btnG=Google+Search”>’ || ‘</a>’

b) to add mouseover :

      ‘<a title=”Product Revenue Loss/Profit”>”Column_name”</a>’

4.     The single quotes signify a string

5.     The pipes || (in hyperlink) act a string operator to concatenate HTML with an actual OBIEE column.

6.     NOTE: we’ve added the target =”_blank” tag to open the URL in a new browser window

7.     NOTE: if the column values contain spaces, you may need to enclose the column in a REPLACE function to replace spaces with %20, which represents a space in a URL.

8.    NOTE: In mouseover HTML text,  you can place the mouseover text in quotes and then mention the column name.

9.     Once you are finished editing the formula click OK and then go to the

   Column Properties -> Data Format tab. Override the       Default Data Format and select Treat Text As : HTML