Report system and method using context-sensitive prompt objects

A reporting system that incorporates a context sensitive prompt object in a report definition to enable questions to be answered automatically by the reporting system (e.g., decision support system, business intelligence and OLAP) at report execution time. The context sensitive prompt object is an object separate from the report such that the context sensitive prompt object may be used by a plurality of different reports. The answer is defined at least in part by a contextual feature of the report execution.