Hi everyone,
There probably have been half a dozen post or more on column widths and horizontal scroll bar for reports. Good news is we are looking to build this. I need some feedback.
1) Right now we 'fit' all columns into a report on a dashboard or C360, no matter how many column. We simply reduce the width (even if not legible) to fit. (There maybe some upper limit, but in principle). We actually do have lengths defined for different column types optimized to fit around 7 - 9 columns for reports with 100% width. Of course with more columns or less width (50% width) these get compressed as described above.
The question is, once we enable horizontal scrollbar, is it okay not to compress to fit and just abide by the widths.The effect of this is for ALL reports, that alway shows all columns in Gainsight, it will now only shows whatever fits, with an obvious horizontal scroll bar.
I believe this is the right solution, but since it changes existing behavior want your feedback.
2) Does everything stated in #1 still apply if simply the browser width is changed. So we won't reduce width of columns, but just start showing horizontal scroll when columns don't fit if you reduce browser width
3) If you agree to approach in #1, then #2 is a no brainer. If admin specifies a custom width for any column, the report will always show this width. If we need to do some kinda of compression despite having having horizontal scroll bar, there are some detail we'll need to figure out, which I can post later.
Thanks!
Gaurav
Question
Setting column widths and horizontal scroll bar in reports in dashboard. Need your feedback
+4My vote is to abide by the widths set by the Admin and feature a scrollbar if the browser size changes.
Right now, there are several columns (i.e. Account Number and End Date in example) that are wider than they need to be by default. Then there are other fields that I would like to be able to widen so that you can see more of it by default without having to scroll (i.e. Entitlement name in example)
I am ok with having a horizontal scrollbar if there are more columns than can be shown when I reduce the size of my browser.
Two additional requests though:
1. For reports that get added to C360 and have the Action column (as above), have the action column moved to first position so that I don't have to scroll across in order to take action on a record.
2. Have the Column heading wrap around so that the column width can be reduced further, instead of obscuring part of the column name (as Triggered Date is in example below):
Right now, there are several columns (i.e. Account Number and End Date in example) that are wider than they need to be by default. Then there are other fields that I would like to be able to widen so that you can see more of it by default without having to scroll (i.e. Entitlement name in example)
I am ok with having a horizontal scrollbar if there are more columns than can be shown when I reduce the size of my browser.
Two additional requests though:
1. For reports that get added to C360 and have the Action column (as above), have the action column moved to first position so that I don't have to scroll across in order to take action on a record.
2. Have the Column heading wrap around so that the column width can be reduced further, instead of obscuring part of the column name (as Triggered Date is in example below):
Jeff Kirkpatrick
Great comments Jeff. And just so that I am clear, once we push out this change into product, without doing anything, for many reports that currently show all columns, will now show only those that fit with a scroll bar when the page is first loaded. Is that okay!
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+4I think so. If we have advance notice and can make CSMs aware of it, it should be received well. As it stands now, they have to widen some columns manually in order to read what is in a field, and that is not sticky. Moving to a scrollbar will be a simpler step.
Jeff Kirkpatrick
1 person likes this
I agree with Jeff's comments above, and would love to have control over report column widths. Many are sized for the column header instead of the content width which makes for some wasted screen space as shown in Jeff's screen shot above. The horizontal scroll bar would be consistent with our other Salesforce reports so shouldn't be an issue for users.
This would be welcome functionality for our team!
This would be welcome functionality for our team!
Hi Gaurav, can you share an estimated time frame for the column header wrapping?
Hey Blynn, we have already implemented setting column widths and horizontal scroll bars. Thanks for your idea regarding column header wrapping. I will add it to the near-term roadmap and let you know as soon as its picked up. Thanks again !
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Sudarshan, you stated that setting column widths and horizontal scroll bars have been implemented, but I am having trouble determining how to set those up within our instance. Could you point me in the right direction?
+1Third!
We've already implemented #2/#3.
Hey Melissa, The columns widths can be set by dragging the column separator lines in both report builder and homepage dashboards. Based on the column widths, and the container size in the homepage Dashboard, a horizontal scroll will appear on its own.
+1 for saving column widths. This is a great request & would improve data visibility in reports.
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Hi everyone, the following functionality has been rolled out over the past few releases
1) By default columns shrink to fit. This is based on filed type. This is existing functionality that has been there for a while.
2) Now in report builder, you can adjust the width of the columns. You can both expand and contract. This is sticky so every use will see this. A few things to note though
3) If you expand, it only expands up to a point that is warranted based on the width of data in column. E.g. if you expand a date column (which is only 8 characters) it will ignore this.
4) When you expand a column, columns whose width is not manually adjusted will shrink slightly (since the remaining space is divided equally). Based on number of columns expanded it may introduce a horizontal scroll when the report loads. If, as admin, you want to control exactly the width of each column, you need to change width manually (even slightly) in report builder. In the future we'll look to make the auto-fit functionality smarter making it based on length of real data in the report vs type of field.
5) End users can of course change the width of any column. Unlike the changes in #2 - #4, these are not sticky/persisted
By the way, there are 2 other posts on this topic with good input for additional customers - https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/have-column-width-settings-persist-on-customers-pag... and https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/reports-2-0-add-ability-to-widen-or-narrow-columns-...
1) By default columns shrink to fit. This is based on filed type. This is existing functionality that has been there for a while.
2) Now in report builder, you can adjust the width of the columns. You can both expand and contract. This is sticky so every use will see this. A few things to note though
3) If you expand, it only expands up to a point that is warranted based on the width of data in column. E.g. if you expand a date column (which is only 8 characters) it will ignore this.
4) When you expand a column, columns whose width is not manually adjusted will shrink slightly (since the remaining space is divided equally). Based on number of columns expanded it may introduce a horizontal scroll when the report loads. If, as admin, you want to control exactly the width of each column, you need to change width manually (even slightly) in report builder. In the future we'll look to make the auto-fit functionality smarter making it based on length of real data in the report vs type of field.
5) End users can of course change the width of any column. Unlike the changes in #2 - #4, these are not sticky/persisted
By the way, there are 2 other posts on this topic with good input for additional customers - https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/have-column-width-settings-persist-on-customers-pag... and https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/reports-2-0-add-ability-to-widen-or-narrow-columns-...
1 person likes this
Hey Gaurav - Is there anything on the roadmap to make the width of the columns sticky for end users? Many of our CSMs like to see different pieces of info within reports and for some of them, they have a performance notes section with a lot of text that they want to be able to see.
Hi JAM, this is not planned at the moment. would it feasible to have a separate report with the performance notes section expanded ? Also would you mind creating a separate post so we can track that, and also see how many other customers have similar use cases?
Just bringing this back to life. Can we apply this functionality to the Customer Scorecard Summary report?
Hi, in addition to the above we have spoken to our Solutions Architect and established that this is in fact a "Scorecard Mass Edit" and not included in the current column resizing functionality. Can anyone confirm if there is a plan to include this moving forward?
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