Enrich dataview formatting options to approach IBCS® standards

Previous Member

1. What is your idea?

 

Enrich the dataview's format settings. In particular the block-specific #format settings of a layout.

 

Currently, the several formatting options I know are :

1. use row templates for the ByRow entities
2. use block formatting options (Dataview Menu > Layout > Block configuration > Format): I can set foreground and background color of the cells, but no border setting (border style, colour, thickness ...)
3. use dataview settings to format further (Dataview Menu > Settings > Format > ...): I can set foreground and background color of the listed elements, but no border setting (border style, colour, thickness ...)

 

What I wish to add is (feel free to add more in the comments):

1. ability to set border properties for Label, Value, Total, Grand total of a specific block of a dataview. Example with
   • double border (top and bottom) for the grand total of each block
     
   • thick bottom border for the label of each block:
     
2. ability to set properties at dataview level (apply to all blocks) for headers, GroupBy, Grand Total beyond the foreground and background colors, e.g.
   • text in bold, e.g. the grand total line of the table above: it has a bold text for TOTAL and the four total values.
   • borders settings (border style, thickness ...)
3. (ADDED 11th oct 2018) ability to set properties (i.e. bold/italicised, left/right/centred, font/size chosen) to
   1. Layout title
   2. Axis names (used as titles)
   3. Axis cells, e.g. in example below, it is not possible to centre the content of Quarter and Month columns

 

2. What specific problem are you trying to find a solution to, or what new scenario would this idea respond to?

 

This idea is maybe quite a small detail, but this enrichment would helps building a BOARD application using reporting standards as suggested by the ibcs ® standards (International Business Communication Standards).

These standards aim at providing a consistent reporting set for the user, so that he can very quickly know whether he is looking on actuals, budget or previous period figures (for example).

 

I give an example for a report table (Source) using IBCS standards so you can get a feeling on where I wish to achieve:

Actual, plan and forecast figures are distinguished

• in the headers text and
• in the headers' borders of the table: bottom double border for plan, thick border for actuals, hatched for forecast

 

3. What workaround have you found and used so far (if any)?

a few workaround with labels or linked dataview might be used, but they work only for small and static dataviews, their print or export is not really acceptable by a customer, the drill-down function on the dataview would open a new dataview without the borders created by the workaround and so on.... See the question I asked regarding this topic.

Monisha Jain

Hi, thank you for sharing your idea. We appreciate the time and effort you put into crafting your suggestion.

Great news, features have been added over the years to obtain the IBCS formats in the Board reports. In Spring 2023, we also added Entity templates that will make the reports creation much easier for the standard templates. Here are some helpful links to the manual:
https://community.board.com/home/leaving?allowTrusted=1&target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.boardmanual.com%2F2021%2Fsummer%2Fwhats-new-release-notes%2F2023-spring-release%2Fmain-features%2Fcustom-style-templates.htm

  https://community.board.com/home/leaving?allowTrusted=1&target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.boardmanual.com%2F2021%2Fsummer%2Fcapsules%2Fscreens%2F2_Objects%2FDataView%2FFormatting_a_DataView.htm%3Frhhlterm%3Dheaded%2520lines%2520line%26rhsearch%3Dhead%2520lines

Here's also a screenshot as an example of a Board screen where we are using the new features: