Rows and Columns - Column Order Captions

Controlling Column Order

Every column is listed in the order in which it will appear in the grid; the first item in the list above represents the left most column and the last item represents the right most column.

However, before looking to set column order here, it is worth being aware that column order is in the first instance inferred from the order of fields in the down axis and then for columns in the across axis, from the order that items appear in their respective filters. For example:

causes the Fiscal Period columns to be displayed in numerical order.

If we wanted to switch periods 1 & 2, we should switch them round in the filter - and in the first instance that is the best thing to do, as it is then the default position whenever the column is regenerated which can happen due to subsequent pivoting actions.

However where there is more than one dimension across, a bit more control is required which is where this dialog comes in. Columns can be further re-ordered (beyond what is specified in the filter) using the up and down arrows on the right hand side.

Captions

Captions can be set for every column using the edit boxes provided. The first column shows the original label for the column, with the text in the Caption edit box overriding it. This can be straight "freeform" text or can contain parameter driven content. A captions dialog to allow such an item to be setup can be accessed by clicking the "..." button.

Advanced : Sometimes the designer may want to rename an item such that how it is displayed is altered across every dialog in FastClose - this can be achieved using the "Field/Member Captions" dialog (on the main window Insert tab) - more on this here.

Hiding Columns

It is frequently the case that the user will want to hide columns they are not interested in. In most cases, this is most effectively done by removing them from the filter selection.

For example, if you don't want to see Budget information, remove it from the "Measures" filter:

However - that will remove ALL budget data, you might well want to see this years budgetary information whilst budgets for previous years, are not interesting and you want to hide them.

This can be achieved by simply ticking the "Hidden" box.

If there are many columns that need to be hidden that follow a pattern, this can be more conveniently configured using the third tab of the Rows and Columns dialog, the "Allowable Value Columns" tab.

More about this here.