Note: If you are new to using the Report Builder, read this article first. It's part of the Certificate Course and includes an introduction and hands-on practice exercises.

The Report Builder enables you to build your Rows/Columns structure with a drag-and-drop interface, where two fields in your data can either have a Parent/Child connection, which means they are on different hierarchy levels (for example GL Account versus Department), or a Siblings connection, referring to items on the same hierarchy level. In Addition, fields can be brought into the report more than once.

Parent/Child Connection

1. 1. What does this mean? This means that values in the report will show data that exists in values from the parent field AND values from the child field

   2. How to create it?

      • Drag the parent field to Rows/Columns

      • Drag the child field and drop it on the parent field (the parent field will be highlighted in blue)

        • In the below Example: parent field is “Account level 1” and child field ( “Account level 2”) is dragged from the fields pane on the left and dropped on Account level 1

          

      3. How is a Parent/Child connection represented in the report preview?

• • In Rows: Parent/Child connection between 2 fields is represented by Indentation of field value
  • Full Row Structure:

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  • In Columns: Parent/Child connection between 2 fields is represented by having the values one under the other

   4. Parent filter - in a Parent/Child connection you can show the Child field for selected values of the             parent field. The way to do that is through the parent filter

• For example: if you want to see Account level 2 details only for Income (and not for all the values in Account level 1 field), click on the parent filter and choose Income

• In the preview Income (value from Account level 1) will have the details of the relevant Account level 2 field and Cost of Good Sold (another value from Account level 1) won't show details of Account level 2

Siblings connection

1. What does this mean? This means that values in the report will show data that exists in values from “sibling a” field OR values from “sibling b” field

2. How to create it?

   • Drag field A to Rows/Columns

   • Drag field B to be below or above field A

     • In the below Example: “Account level 1” and “Department” has a Siblings connection

3. How is a Siblings connection represented in the report preview?

• In both Rows and Columns values for siblings fields will appear one after the other

4. Examples Siblings connection usage

• Showing Actual data for entire year, but Budget data only for last month. In the example below Scenario (filtered on Actuals) and Scenario (filtered on Budget) have Siblings connection

  
• Showing Account level 2 details for income and Department details for Expenses. In the example below Account level 2 and Department have siblings connection

If you have any questions that weren’t addressed by this article, please reach out to the Support Team via support@datarails.com. We are happy to help.