Lists, boards and reports
Everything Businessflo shows you about many documents at once is one of three things: a list, a board or a report. All three open the same way, load the same way, keep their saved views in the same three layers, and are shaped in one designer.
A consultant who understands this page can answer most "the report looks different for me" questions without opening a single setting.
The three things
| What it is | An example | |
|---|---|---|
| List | A Data Analytics list: rows you can sort, group, pivot, chart, print and export | The month's sales by customer, grouped by region |
| Board | A dashboard: a page of tiles, each a figure, a table or a chart | Sales this month, receivables due and stock below reorder level, side by side |
| Report | A report laid out to print on paper | An invoice, a customer statement, a stock ledger |
Each one has the same bar across its top: the title, the Criteria, a Views button, Load, the export or print buttons the list or report allows, Schedule, Add to dashboard, and the favourite pin.
Nothing runs until you press Load
A list, a board or a report opens on its criteria, not on its rows. Until you press Load it shows Nothing loaded yet and the criteria it needs, with Load and Open criteria. A required criteria that is still empty stops the load and opens the criteria panel.
The one exception is a saved view with Auto load switched on: it loads as soon as it is opened.
On a board, the tiles fill in card by card. When you press Load every tile appears at once as a grey placeholder, and each one fills in as soon as its own answer arrives. A slow tile no longer holds up the board, and a tile that fails shows its error on its own card while the rest of the board carries on.
Every list opens on a view
There are no specially written list screens any more. Every Data Analytics list in Businessflo is the same list engine opening on a view: a saved shape of that list with its columns, groups and totals.
A view decides:
- which tab the list opens on: Table, Pivot, Chart, Print or Custom;
- whether it loads at once (Auto load) or waits for you to press Load.
Pick a view from Views. Pick Standard to go back to the list as it opens for everybody.
Views live in three layers
Every saved view, list layout, board layout and report design sits in one of three layers.
| Save for | Who gets it | Who may save it |
|---|---|---|
| Only me | Only you | Anyone who can open the list |
| Company | Everyone in this company, unless they saved their own | A consultant, or a user whose role holds the Company Stored Views and Layouts right |
| Configuration | Every client | A consultant, and only on the development system |
When a list or a board opens it looks for a default in that order: your own default first, then the company's, then the configuration's. With none of them it opens as it was built.
If the company has a view with the same name as a configuration view, the company's view wins and the configuration one is not listed. That is how one client gets its own version of a standard list without changing anybody else's.
A view can be saved from any list and from any help list you pick a value from, not only from Data Analytics. Open Views, choose Save new view, type a View name and choose Save for. If a view of that name already exists in that layer the button reads Replace.
The company's saved views and layouts can be reviewed in one place, the Company Stored Views and Layouts screen, which shows user views, company views and configuration views side by side.
One designer for lists, boards and reports
There is one designer. It looks and works the same wherever you open it; only the thing it designs changes. There is no switch between a list designer, a board designer and a report designer: it opens on what you opened it from.
| To design | Open it from | Who may |
|---|---|---|
| A list | On the list, the Custom tab, then Design | Consultants |
| A board | On the board, Arrange tiles at the right of the head | Anyone, for themselves. Save for the company and Save as the standard layout follow the layer rules above |
| A report | On the Report screen or the Client Report Design screen, Design this report | Users who hold that screen. Anyone else is told This login cannot save this design. |
Every save in the designer lands in one of the three layers above.
Reports: standard design, override and view
A report has up to three kinds of design.
- Standard design: the design every client prints. It is saved from the Report screen, and only on the development system.
- Client override: this company's own design. It is saved from Client Report Design with Save as override for this client, and it replaces the standard design for this company only.
- Report view: a named variation saved with Save as view…. The report keeps printing as it does; the view is something you pick on the report, and it can be found in search.
A report view carries its criteria. Picking the view on the report sets the criteria it was saved with and loads the report; picking Standard puts the criteria back to their defaults. The criteria a view loads with are kept on its line in Client Report Design, where they can be changed.
A report that has no design keeps printing exactly as it always has.
Home and the dashboard
The old Workspace has gone. What it held now lives on the dashboard as a personal board: your own page of icon tiles and menu links, seen only by you. An old Workspace link opens the matching personal board.
To put something on a personal board, open the list, form or report, set its criteria and view the way you want it to open, and press Add to dashboard. Choose Tile or Menu, the board, a name and an icon or a group. A report can only be added as a menu link. Opening the item later opens it exactly as it was when you added it.
The board's name in the head is the dashboard switcher. Click it to search the boards you can open; the boards you opened most recently come first, and your personal boards are listed under My boards.
Sending a list or a report on a schedule
Press Schedule on a list or a report to have it emailed on its own. The schedule records what is sent, on which view and criteria, as PDF or Excel, to whom, and when: hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. Every schedule is a document on the Scheduler screen, where its next run, its last run and how that run went are shown.
A list is sent on its view. The list is built the way that view draws it, and then exported. Two things stop a schedule at once rather than sending something wrong:
- a view with no table to export, and
- a view that has since been deleted.
A run that finds nothing to send says Nothing to send. The first time a schedule fails, the person who made it is told.
If something looks wrong
- "The list is blank" - it has not been loaded. Fill the criteria and press Load, or check that no required criteria is empty.
- "The sales list looks different for him" - he has his own default view, or a company view is replacing the standard one. Open Views and pick Standard to compare.
- "I cannot save a view for the company" - your role does not hold the Company Stored Views and Layouts right. Save it for yourself, or ask a consultant.
- "There is no Custom tab" - the Custom tab is for consultants, unless the view itself opens as Custom.
- "One tile on the board says it failed" - only that tile could not load. The rest of the board is right.
- "The scheduled statement stopped arriving" - open the schedule on the Scheduler screen and read its last run. A deleted view or a view with no table stops it.
- "Where is my Workspace?" - on the dashboard, under My boards in the dashboard switcher.