Way to limit or not allow user to select a specific time period in the dropdown

Ana22

Hi,

 

I have a line item Start and End that has a list of 1-5 as shown on the screenshot below. In the example below for item 1, I have selected start and end date of Jan 19- Mar 19, in item 2 I have selected Apr 19 - Jun 19. Is there a way to limit the dropdown of the second item so that it will not allow me to select a start date that is already from the duration of item 1? or if possible, a checking or indicator that will prompt me that the period I am selected is already in use?

 

Thanks,
Ana

JaredDolich

Hi @Ana22 

You certainly can control the identification of an overlap but I can't think of an efficient way to prevent an overlap. There might be some ways to use DCA and/or dependent dropdowns on a dashboard but I'll have to give it a lot thought.

Summary:

 

Here's a way you can identify when an overlap occurs, identify it, and use conditional formatting (if you want).

You will need to build these lists / modules:

- List: Numbers for start and end months

- Module: System module for your list

- Module: Input module to get the start and end months

- Module: Calculation module by time and by your list to identify the months being used

- Module: Calculation module identifies the months with overlap (optional - you can use a subsidiary list in the other calc module if you want)

 

Steps:

Create the list:

Create a system module for that list:

Create your input module. Start with the first two line items. We'll add the third at the end.

Calculation module:

This will map the months being used by the number list.

Note the aggregations on the overlap? line item

The second calc module removes the numbered list and aggregates the boolean by month.

In this example we can now see that June is an overlap month.

 

Last step is to add the third line item to the input module since it's the same dimension.

Ana22

Thank you! Will  try this and will let you know if it works.

 

Regards,

Ana

Misbah

@JaredDolich 

 

Great,Truly a Master.

 

I think it will surely help him find overlaps But what he can't do is to restrict the dependent drop down based on the first column. On second thoughts I wish there was native functionality for modelers to decide if they want to enable Dependent drop down on TIME formatted line items. If enabled it would only look for future months based on the month selected without creating the mappings.

Ana22

Thanks Jared, This worked!! 🙂

Regards,
Ana

PrashantNemali

Hi @JaredDolich 

 

I have similar issue, but instead of time period dropdown have calendar option to select the dates as below.

 

Any help appreciated.

-Prashant