What is a Report Shortcut?
A Report shortcuts within a document has a very specific purpose. The idea is to edit and format a report within the report itself and have that formatting retained in any place it is reference.
Where there is a shortcut on a document, you make changes to the report, and not the document. These changes are then propagated to everywhere the the report is reference.
An Eye Opening Use Case
When I understood what a report shortcut was, I was sure I would never use it. I was totally wrong. A good use case for this is a navigational menu for MicroStrategy Mobile.
Let's say I have a menu which is triggered in an information window. In the information windows is a list of documents (navigation points) that a user can link to from anywhere in mobile app. Every document needs to have this menu. If there is a change to the menu, all of the menus need to change. Every document.
This is where a report shortcut works it's magic. Each of the menus would be a shortcut to a report and I would make the change in exactly one place and have all documents menus updated at the same time.
Adding a Report Shortcut
The process is very simple. To add the shortcut;
Add the report to a document
highlight the document section where the shortcut will reside
Right click the dataset and select "Add shortcut".
It's a simple as that. Just keep in mind that the formatting changes need to be done on the report and not the document and you're good to go.
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