Advanced View

Overview

With Advanced View you can view search results in a customizable format. This allows you to view targeted information by filtering and organizing the information to suit your needs. You can also save views, use the Quick approval feature to validate requests, and create and customize charts.

You can access it either by clicking the Advanced View checkbox on the Search screen, or by clicking the Advanced View button located at the top right of the Search results screen.

Advanced View has several dynamic features:

Adjust column width
Group by column
Sort by column
Edit columns
Insert footer information
Export search results
Save as view
Quick approval
Charts

Adjust column widths

To adjust the column width, place the cursor in between two columns at the header level until the bi-directional arrow appears, then slide left or right to adjust the column size.

Group by column

To group the search results by the data in a particular column, either drag and drop a column header onto the blue bar directly above the columns, or click the pencil icon located in the top right corner of the column header and select Group by this column from the drop-down menu.

The search results will now be grouped by the data in that column.

You can continue to do this for multiple columns, according to how you want to group the information.

To ungroup a column, click the x next to the column name in the header.

Sort by column

To sort the search results in ascending or descending order, you can either click a column header, or hover over a header (which will turn dark grey) and click the pencil icon in the top right corner to open a drop-down menu, and then choose to add or remove a sort. A triangle will appear in the header of the column by which the results have been sorted; click it to reverse the sort order.

Filter by column

To filter by column, hover over a header (which will turn dark grey) and click the pencil icon in the top right corner to open a drop-down menu. In the Show rows where section, you can filter by combinations of key words or number configurations, depending on whether you are filtering text or numeric information.

Edit column

To edit a column, click the Edit columns link above the search results grid. This allows you to hide a column by unchecking the checkbox next to the column heading, create a new column, or edit existing column information.

You can also hide a column by opening the Options drop-down menu and selecting Hide column.

You can create a new column by clicking the New column button. This opens a new window that lets you fill in new information or edit existing information about a column.

You can enter or edit column information by using either the Formula tab or the JavaScript tab.

The Formula tab allows you to easily enter column information by clicking inside the Expression editor and entering information or selecting from the list of existing columns displayed.

Text written in the Expression editor must be entered either within quotation marks (" ") or correspond to a column name. Text strings will be displayed in yellow and columns will displayed as orange text with an orange border. Invalid text will appear in white underlined in red, indicating an error.

You can also select the format of the information that you enter in the Expression editor by clicking the Format button. The default setting is Automatic, which detects the format of the information being entered (numeric, text, date, etc.). You can also choose from a number of other format selections. Scrolling over any of the format selections displays several options, including a Custom option.

The JavaScript tab allows you to write JavaScript functions in order to calculate the values of your custom columns.

You will need to use some basic JavaScript methods to create or modify a column. For information on using JavaScript for custom columns, see the Advanced View: Custom columns article in the WorkflowGen Forum & Knowledge Base.

For more information on editing columns in Advanced View, see the Advanced View: Custom columns article in the WorkflowGen Forum & Knowledge Base.

Footer information

You can add information in the footer of your column if that column contains numerical values (for example, list prices in dollars or another currency).

Footer functions are only available if the column contains numerical values.

Hover the mouse over the column footer, which will turn blue, then click the footer to open the Edit footer window. From this window you can add various types of information, such as average, minimum and maximum values, etc.

When you check Groups in the Edit footer window, the results will appear next to the grouped column data in the Search results list.

Export grid

You can export your search results by clicking the Export grid link, located just above the column grid. This option allows you to export the search data in a number of formats (Excel, XML, CVS, HTML, JSON, TSV), or you can copy the coding information to another location by clicking the Show data button.

Save as view

Once you have organized the search data in a way that is most convenient to you, you might want to save this view for future reference. To do this, click the Save as view link located above the column grid. This displays a new window that allows you to create a new view or replace an existing one. You can also create a link to this view from your homepage, and share this view with other participants. This option is also available in Standard view.

Since process data security settings apply to views, only those users with the required permissions will be able to see the contents of the views.

Quick approval

In the search results list, validation actions for which Quick approval has been enabled will display buttons (such as Yes, No, or Modify, as defined in the process form) that let you easily and quickly handle multiple validation requests at once. (If you have actions other than validations, you can group the list by types of action by dragging the Action column header into the blue header bar; this way, all of your validation actions will appear together.)

The Quick approval checkbox is only available when searching in User mode, and not in Supervisor mode.

Checking the Multi-selection box lets you select the same approval answer for all actions of the same process by clicking a single approval button. You can also do this without enabling this option by holding down the Alt key and clicking a single button. However, enabling this setting does not automatically submit any actions, so you still have to click the Submit button to complete the actions.

Once you have finished handling validation actions, click Submit. Click Reset to undo your selections (and delete your comments, if applicable).

You can also save this list as a view, which you can then access from your User Portal home page without having to perform a new search.

To take full advantage of the Quick approval feature, you can then place the saved view as a floating panel on your home page dashboard (see Dashboard). Whenever you return to your User Portal, the list will refresh automatically, and you can handle your approvals directly in the dashboard panel using the buttons.

Charts

You can create charts (column, bar, line, pie) from Advanced view reports, save them as views, and share them with other users. You can also save the chart as a view and place it on your home page dashboard (see Dashboard).

Click the View chart link, then choose the type of chart and the value by which to calculate the chart (e.g. count, average, sum). Only the available options will be displayed in the drop-down menus.

The report results must be grouped by at least one column to generate a standard chart.

If custom chart editing has been enabled in the Administration Module, clicking View chart will prompt you to choose either Standard or Custom. (See Custom charts below for information on how to use custom charts.)

Click View grid or the chart to return to the data grid page.

Edit chart

Click Edit chart to open a dialog box with options to customize a standard chart (click Custom to edit a custom chart). Only the options available for the type of chart you’ve chosen will be displayed. For example, the Show percentage option is only available for pie charts.

Custom charts

The Custom charts feature lets you create customized charts with your data grid using JavaScript. You can create a chart with any chart library.

To use this feature, custom chart editing must be enabled on the Portal tab of the Configuration Panel in the Administration Module.

Data and objects

Enter your JavaScript code using the following variables:

chartContainer: Draw your chart onto this div object.
grid.getGroups(): This function returns a JSON containing a simplified version of the grid data. The JSON is sorted by group name and contains the following values:
- count: This value indicates the number of rows contained in the group filter.
- aggregates: If a footer function is present, this array collection will contain the aggregate values of the group.
- subgroups: If defined, this object will contain a collection of JSON objects that represent the subgroups of the current group. The JSON objects will have identical objects to their parent.
grid.getGroups(true): This function returns the JSON containing all of the grid data. The JSON is sorted by group name and can contain the following values:
- subrows: This object returns an array containing all the rows in the corresponding group. The row object is a JSON with values sorted by the column ID.
- subgroups: If defined, this object will contain a collection of JSON objects that represent the subgroups of the current group. The JSON objects will have identical objects to their parent.
grid.getRows(): This function returns an Array containing all of the rows in the grid from top to bottom.