Formatting Reports - New UI
- Matt Sullivan (Unlicensed)
Accelerate has a number of powerful tools that allow you to format your reports in a number of different ways to better suit your needs. There are seven ways to format a report: Sort, Control Break, Highlight, Compute, Aggregate, Chart and Group By.
Accessing format options
To access these formatting options, click the 'Actions' button and highlight the 'Format' Option. Then click on your formatting option of choice.
Sort
Sorting is an easy way to display the information you want first. Click the 'Sort' button and this menu will be displayed:
The numerical order defines which 'Sort' has priority. With 1 being sorted first. To help differentiate between each derivative of the sorting, you can add Control Breaks.
Control Breaks
A Control Break splits the page into sections dependant on the value in a chosen column.
To add a Control Break head to the 'Format' section and click 'Control Break'. The following menu will be displayed. Here you simply choose the column(s) you wish to break up:
The numerical order also defines which Column break has priority.
Highlight
Highlighting allows you to highlight certain features. Similar to filtering you can set which rules you want the highlighting function to follow and Accelerate will highlight your feature.
You can change the colour of both the cell background and text within the 'highlight' settings box:
Compute
The ‘Compute’ option is a useful tool that can be used come a time when you need to create a field which is the function of one or more other fields. Calculations are easily created, as long as all the data you need is available in the report.
Example formulas can be displayed using the ‘Examples’ dropdown. These are common aliases that you may find useful to use on your report data.
More details about the compute option can be found in Calculated Fields - New UI
Aggregate
You can define an aggregation against a column by choosing the Aggregate option. Aggregates are displayed after each control break and at the end of the report within the column for which they are defined - this makes it quick and easy to see the totals for each defined group.
To delete an Aggregation click ‘Actions' > ‘Format' > 'Aggregate'. From the dropdown where it will automatically say 'New Aggregation' select the one you wish to delete. Then click the 'Delete’ button.
Chart
You can create different types of charts easily by using the ‘Chart’ format option. There are four types of chart available - ‘Bar’, ‘Line with Area’, ‘Pie’ and ‘Line’. Charts can be a great way to visualise reports in a different way to tables.
With options for sorting, functions and different orientations, the ‘Chart’ option is a powerful tool to view data and identify trends and relationships.
Group By
Using the Group Function is useful if you require a summary of results. You can choose which results you wish to view numerical values for.
In the following menu, the first row of drop-downs define which columns you wish to group for results. Here you can choose what function to apply, create a label and use a format mask if applicable.
You can add more functions by clicking the ‘Add Function’ button.
Additional Knowledge
New Basic Reporting Advanced Filtering - New UI Calculated Fields - New UI