Why Is My Cell Not Inputable / Annotatable?

Symptom

When designing an input Form, a common issue that you may come across is that the cells which are supposed to be input-enabled are not. You can right-click into the Cell Details to investigate this issue.

 

 

There are three sections in the Cell Details window: Misc, State, and Slice. The State and Slice sections will help us identify the cause that prevents a cell from being inputable.

 

 

Only when the values for Is Lowest, Is Writeable, Is Input, and Is Locked are True, True, True, and False, respectively, will a cell be inputable.

 

 

Is Lowest

Whether all of the dimension members that define the cell are at the lowest level of their hierarchy.

 

If the value is False, you need to check the detailed information in Slice section:

 

• If any of the slice values are 0, that dimension has not been set to a member on the lowest level. It may have been set [All], or an attribute member in a leveled hierarchy.
• If any of the slice values are -1, the None member of that dimension has been selected. When we create a medium or large size dimension, a None member will be automatically added to the dimension.
• If all slice values are positive integers, it means one of the dimension members is not on the lowest level of a parent-child hierarchy. This is most often in Account Dimension.

 

In all cases, to make the cell inputable, ensure that the dimension is targeting a member on the lowest level of the hierarchy, with a MemberId greater than 0.

 

 

Is Writable

Whether the user has the Write permission to the Model /Dimension or not.

 

If the value is false and the user is supposed to have the permission to write, navigate to the Administrator module and grant write permission to the user or the Group/Role they belong to.

 

 

This permission is also affected by the Write Restrictions in the Dashboard App configuration. These permissions restrict users to only have write permissions for the members specified. Remove these restrictions to re-enable input for all members of the selected dimension.

 

 

If Is Writeable is false and Is Locked is true, the Read-Only setting may be configured for the form in the Dashboard editor. See the Is Locked section below for more details.

 

 

Is Input

Whether the Input property of all the dimension members that define the cell have been set to True.

 

 If the value is false, please check the Dimension Members’ Input property values.

 

 

If all Dimension Members have Input set to true, but the cell is still not input-enabled, check the Manage Cell Attribute section within the Form. In the Attributes tab, the cell input attribute can be overridden. Ensure Disallow is not selected.

 

 

 

Is Locked

Whether the plan is locked or not.

 

If this value is true, there are two settings you may need to check. The Lock property of the Dashboard App in the Administrator module:

 

 

And the Read-Only option in the Dashboard Form settings. Navigate to the Dashboard Editor in the Modeler, open the settings for the form, and un-check Read-Only:

 

 

 

 

 

Is Annotate

A cell is annotated when at least one of the Dimension Members that define the cell is annotate-enabled. This means the Annotate property of the Dimension Member is true.

 

 

You can also check the Cell Details to see why a cell is not annotate-enabled. Similar to the input settings, only when the values for Is Lowest, Is Writeable, Is Annotate, and Is Locked are True, True, True, and False, respectively, will a cell be annotatable.

 

 

To allow users save the annotation content into the database, you have to check the Query includes annotation and text cells option under Advanced Settings. Otherwise, when users post their data, all annotation contents will be removed.

 

Note: Annotation can only be saved to the Writeback partition. If there are cases where you need to insert comment into the cells in Rules (for example, alert messages) you have to insert the annotation into Writeback partition.