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Interactive Report vs Interactive Grid: Key Differences Every APEX Developer Should Know

Hi Everyone! 👋

Recently, I came across an interesting behavior in Oracle APEX that’s worth sharing.

I had a page containing two reports — an Interactive Grid (IG) and an Interactive Report (IR) — both based on the same SQL query. The query included a bind page item in the WHERE clause to filter data dynamically.

As per the requirement, I set the page item’s Storage Type to Memory Only. When the user clicks the Submit button (handled through a Dynamic Action), both the IG and IR regions refresh perfectly, and the data displays as expected.

However, I noticed something unusual: when clicking on a column heading in the Interactive Grid to use the built-in column filter dropdown, it displayed no values. On the other hand, the Interactive Report showed the distinct filter values correctly for the same column.

Note: To make the Interactive Grid column heading dropdown filter display values, the page item’s storage type must be set to Session State, not Memory Only. ✅

This behavior occurs due to a fundamental difference in how IG and IR handle filters internally.

I’ll browse and share a short summary of what I found:

  • ✅ Interactive Grid (IG) relies on an in-memory model for filtering, sorting, and dropdown value generation after the initial server query.

  • ✅ Interactive Report (IR) performs server-side queries to populate filter dropdowns, fetching distinct database values each time.

When a bind variable (your page item) is set to Memory Only, it is not persisted to session state — meaning it’s available only in the browser, not on the server.

Since IG uses its client-side model, it may lack the necessary data context to build dropdown filter values if the initial model doesn’t contain all possible distinct values.

In contrast, IR re-queries the database when building filter dropdowns, so it always retrieves up-to-date distinct values using the latest bind variable — even if that variable was Memory Only. ✅

FeatureInteractive Report (IR)Interactive Grid (IG)
PurposePrimarily for advanced data analysis, exploration, and reporting​For both reporting and data entry/manipulation, with spreadsheet-like and real-time editing features​
EditabilityRead-only; users cannot directly edit data in the report​Can be configured as editable; users can add, modify, or delete records inline​
Customizations by UserUsers can sort, filter, group, highlight, and define computations​Users can sort, filter, highlight, lock/freeze/hide/reorder columns, drag-drop rearrange columns, and more​
Aggregations & BreaksAllows aggregations, group by, charting, and breaks via Actions menu​Allows aggregations, group by, and breaks, often with more flexibility​
Multi-Row OperationsNo support for multi-row edit/operations​Supports multi-row select and operations, making bulk editing possible​
Inline EditingNot supported​Supported (if enabled by developer)​
​
Best Use CaseData analysis, exploration, exporting, ad-hoc queries, read-only presentation​Data entry, spreadsheet-style manipulation, transactional operations, data maintenance​
Actions MenuYes (provides report operations)​Yes (provides both grid and row-level operations)​
Dynamic ActionsLimited support​Extensive support for dynamic actions and custom JavaScript​​
PerformanceGood with large data; server-side filtering​Optimized for interactivity; may load more data into client side model for fast editing/filtering​​
File/Image/LOB SupportBuilt-in actions for file download/display of BLOB/image columns​; more straightforward with filesNot as straightforward; may need workarounds/plugins for BLOB/image columns​
​
Save User SettingsUsers can save their report customizations as private/public reports​Users can save modified grid layouts as private/public reports​

Note: Some information has been gathered from OpenAI. Kindly reconfirm it with official Oracle APEX documentation as well.

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