Management Reports: Table card formatting options

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billdowling
billdowling
in Best Practices

With the introduction of the table card in Management Reporting, you now have several formatting options available to determine how you want the table and data to appear on your report. This article will guide you through those options and guide you on when to use them.   

When looking to format the appearance of your Table card, the following options are available: 

Conditional formatting 

This is not strictly part of the table card formatting as it is applied when customizing your view, but I have included it here as there are certain circumstances where this can be a useful option to use, such as highlighting exceptions. Note that conditional formatting will take precedence over any of the subsequent table formatting options. In the example below I am using conditional formatting to highlight the quarters with the highest revenue and operating expenses. 

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 Advantages 

Disadvantages 

Simple to apply as part of the view customization in the UX 

Only applies to data, not headers 

Useful for drawing attention to data or highlighting exceptions/outliers  

Cannot change the format of the data 

Not restricted to Management Report pages, available across all UX pages 

Usually requires model builder access to create a conditional format line item 

 

Themes 

These are pre-defined templates that can easily be applied to a table card from the Format menu in the card configuration, and are useful if you want a quick way of making your data clearer. 

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Advantages 

Disadvantages 

Quick and easy to apply 

Limited number of fixed themes available 

Applies formatting to header and data 

  

Can be used in combination with styles and format options 

  

 

 Styles 

Styles allow you to apply a format to groups of objects within the table e.g. all row headers, all data, and all quarters. This gives you more flexibility and is useful for creating a consistent view across the same types of data (e.g., quarters, year, headings, etc.) 

Styles are also a useful way of using the style format defined in the module blueprint and applying a format (e.g., bold for Summary1).

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Advantages 

Disadvantages 

Not limited to pre-defined templates 

Doesn't allow different formats for specific items (e.g., line items, a particular product, or a period)

Provides consistent formatting across groups (e.g., same format for all quarters, all years)

Doesn't allow format changes to the data such as number scaling 

Can utilize styles applied to line items in the source module (e.g., Heading1, Summary2, etc.)

  

Useful if you want a different format for header and data 

  

  

Pro Tip: If you make regular use of the module blueprint styles this can be a quick way of creating a reusable style template: 

  • Create a module with a line item for each style 
  • Add this to a Management Report and apply a format to each line item summary. Note you can also apply formatting to the other style categories such as row/column headers and Time summaries.  
  • Save the card as a template (you could delete the card from the Report once the template has been saved) 
  • The template can now be added to any Report page. Switch the module to the one you require (Income Statement in the example below) and the line item style will be applied to the new module. 

This is a great way to get around the limitations of the pre-defined themes as the template can be used across any Report page in the app. 

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Format 

Format allows you to apply granular formatting to specific items within the table. This is the most flexible option and is used when you want to apply different formats to specific items within the report. Some of the available options are: 

  • Cell alignment 
  • Number format (e.g., percentage, currency, prefix/suffix)
  • Scaling to thousands/millions 
  • Decimal point and thousand separators 

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Advantages 

Disadvantages 

The most granular level of formatting available 

More time-consuming than the other formatting options 

Allows number format and scale to be applied to data 

Can only be applied to a specific line or list items, not to groups 

Specific items can be formatted separately (e.g., line or list items)

  

 

In practice, I have found using a combination of styles and format to be the most common approach for my reporting examples. The ability to have a different format for each line item has been particularly useful. A key point to bear in mind is that table card formatting is applied in the order that you add each option, with conditional formatting overriding any of these other formatting options. Consider how you want the finished table to look before you apply any formatting. 

As you can see from the above, there are now many options to allow you to apply a wide range of different formats to the table card. When transitioning to Management Reporting in many cases the source reports will be from Excel and the temptation will be to replicate the Excel reports. From my own experience, I know it can be difficult to show restraint when so many options are available. I would try to use this opportunity to take a step back and consider the story you are trying to tell with the data and the audience that will consume these reports. 

See the attachment to the right to review a PDF export of the Management Report examples discussed above. I also suggest learning more from data guru Nancy Duarte on How To Display Data In Presentations The Right Way. 

Do you have feedback on this content? Let us know in the comments below! 

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