Managing columns, groupings, and values

Modified on Wed, 10 Dec at 1:43 PM

The Report Customisation screen lets you choose what information you see in your reports, how it is grouped, and which totals and summaries you can view.

Note: When editing a report, if you make any mistakes and want to start again, click RESET.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Managing columns
Grouping records
Values
Video

Managing columns

The most common fields are shown in the Column Selector panel on the right.

Tick / untick the box beside any column name to add / remove it from the report.
Each column belongs to a set which you can expand / collapse to view all its columns.
You can use the search box to find a specific column
Tick / untick any column set to add / remove ALL the set's columns to the report.
This icon:beside a column set indicates that some of its columns have been added to the report.
If you want to add a column that isn't available, click More columns at the top-right of the screen.

More columns

By default, only the most commonly-used sets of columns are displayed in the Column Selector panel. To add further sets of columns, click the More Columns button at the top-right of the report customisation screen.

(click to expand)

The Available to add section on the left displays all the column sets not yet available in the report. You can expand any set to view its columns. To make any set available in the column selector panel, click its add icon:

The In use section on the right displays all the column sets available in the report. Again, you can expand any set to view its columns or remove the set by clicking its remove icon

Warning: Removing a set of columns from the In use section will also remove any of its fields that have been added to the report.

Resizing columns

To change the width of a column:

Hover the mouse to the right of the column until the cursor changes:
Drag the column to its new size.

Repositioning columns

You can move any column by dragging-and-dropping it into its new position

Grouping records

The groupings feature lets you put all records with the same value together. For example, you could:

Group an employee report by each employee's nationality.
Group employee bank details by sort code.

Note: Some reports, such as the Pensions and benefits report, will already have multiple groupings applied.

To apply a grouping by a column heading, drag-and-drop the column name from Column Selector panel into the Row Groups panel on the bottom-right.
You can apply multiple groupings by dragging-and-dropping further columns.
If you have applied multiple groupings, you can adjust their order by dragging-and-dropping them in the Row Groups panel.
To remove a grouping, click its X icon.

Values

When you create a grouping, by default, no summary information is shown. For fields such as currency or numerical fields, it is useful to know the totals for all the values in the group, e.g. to view the totals for different payments made to employees.

You can also view other types of values, including counts, or minimum/maximums.

Note: Some reports, such as the HMRC payment summary report, already have one or more values applied.

To apply a column value to a grouping, drag-and-drop the column name from the Column Selector panel into the Values panel at the bottom-right.

When you apply a value, it will default to show the total. To change this, click its name, then choose one of the following:

Total percentage: Will display "Not a number" if percentages cannot be calculated)
Avg: The average of all values in the column.
Count: The total number of records
First / last: The value of the first / last record in the report.
Min / max: The lowest / highest value in the report.
Sum: The total of all the values in the column.

Video

To find out how to use these features, watch this short video: