Sometimes we need to add a dummy column to OBIEE report. This is specially true for combine request reports (acting as unions) when we need only the values from one part of the union and nulls or zeroes for the other. To acheive that, we need to add a column with either null or zero value (depending on our requirement). The values to put inside the dummy column’s formula are different, depending on the column’s data format.
If the column is used as a dummy in combine request report it should have the same column type as its respective column in the other part of report – numeric, text or date. Otherwise you’ll get the ODBC error in results.
To create a dummy column with null or zero value, add a column to the report’s criteria and change its formula to one of the below:
Column with numeric values
CAST(null as DOUBLE)
or
0
Text column
or
Date column
CAST(null as DATE)
