Operations on a Report

The primary function of reporting is data-driven decision making and improved efficiency. This goal becomes more attainable with the column actions, available for the report. A user can perform various actions on a saved report, making it even better, richer and more informative.

These actions are accessible through columns.

Let’s elaborate what these actions are and how they are performed.

Sorting
Grouping
Moving column
Removing column
Aggregate functions

Sorting

The report can be sorted ascending or descending based on the relevant column.

The sorting can also be done by simply clicking on the respective columns’ header cell. The header cell (with the name of the column) acts as a toggle button. Clicking the header once sorts the report in ascending, while clicking the second time sorts the report in descending manner. Clicking for the third time removes sorting and restores the report in original form.

The blue arrow pointing up denotes that ascending order sorting is applied. The blue arrow pointing down denotes that descending order sorting is applied. No blue arrow denotes that sorting is not applied.

Moving Column

A column can be moved left or right of it’s current position, using the column dropdown menu.

Column before moving

Column after moving

Removing Column

A column can be removed from the report altogether.

Once a column is removed, users can add it again by editing the report and selecting the relevant checkbox.

Grouping

As the name suggests, the grouping option is used to group similar values together in the report.

Users have to select the Group Rows option from the desired column’s drop down menu.

In our example we used Task Title column to group the rows. Now all distinct values for the Task Title are grouped together.

A report with grouping can be grouped again, using another column. This is called nested grouping. Take the above example. We have grouped the report based on Task Title. Now both the First Prototype Development and the Initial Design have multiple values. Let’s segregate them further by using the Status column.