The report canvas

The canvas is where you build and edit a report. It works like a design tool and prints like a page: a ruled sheet on a darker desk, blocks that snap to the sheet's grid, and cherry docked at the side when you want help.

Create a report

A new report opens straight away. If a blank report has a description, its empty canvas offers let cherry build it from the description.

The page

The sheet is 24 cells wide. Each cell is a square that blocks snap to, so two blocks placed by different people, or by cherry, line up without nudging. The sheet grows downwards as the report does and always keeps a clear band at the foot for the next block.

Because the width is fixed, a report is the same report on every screen and prints the same way. The canvas opens zoomed to fit the page across your window, up to 150%, and a page narrower than the window sits centred on the desk.

Blocks cannot leave the sheet's width. Drawing, dragging and resizing all stop at its left and right edges, because a block half off the page is a block half out of the report.

Add a block

Every block starts as a box you draw. You can draw as many boxes as you like before filling any of them.

Pick from the fluid

This door builds a block from your semantic fluid with no AI involved. It opens a pane on the right, titled build a block from the fluid, and the box on the page becomes a live preview of the block at its real size. The preview re-runs every time you change a pick.

1. Press a metric in the catalogue for the number, then a dimension to break it down. You can also press a raw column, and the menu on its chip chooses how it is summarised. A date dimension arrives grouped by month, and the menu on its chip changes the grouping.
2. Add conditions to narrow the rows, using the same condition builder as the workbench. See filters and conditions.
3. Leave show it as alone, or choose kpi, bar, line or table. Until you choose, sanda suggests a mark from what you picked and says so: a measure alone is a kpi, a measure over dates is a line, a measure over anything else is a bar, and a selection with no measure is a table.
4. Edit the title if you want to. It starts as your selection said in words, such as "net revenue by month".
5. Set rows for a bar, line or table, up to 200. A kpi has no rows setting.
6. For a kpi, tick compare with the previous period to show the change against the period before. For a kpi or a line, enter a target and, if you like, what it is called. See Blocks for both.
7. Press place block.

To change a block that is already on the page, select it and press edit in its toolbar. The same pane opens seeded with what the block asks today, and the button reads apply. A block cherry placed is a starting point, not something to delete and re-ask for.

Ask cherry

This door takes a sentence. Pick what cherry may place with the chips, then describe it.

Type your request (for example "Net revenue by month, last 12 months") and press Enter or build. Blocks land on the page while cherry is still working. If your request is ambiguous, cherry asks which do you mean? and offers a few buttons. If cherry places nothing, it tells you why under cherry says, and ask differently opens the box again.

For building a whole pack in one go, use cherry's own pane instead. See Build reports with cherry.

Arrange blocks

Select a block by clicking it. Its border turns to the accent colour.

• Move it by dragging its header. A dashed outline shows where it will land.
• Resize it by dragging the corner handle at its bottom right. A block is never smaller than 3 cells wide and 2 high.
• Rename it by double-clicking its title. Titles are lowercase, like every other name in the semantic fluid.
• Switch the mark with the four icons in the small toolbar above a selected chart or table (kpi, bar, line and table). The question stays the same and only the drawing changes.
• Change the time grouping with the by day, by week, by month, by quarter or by year menu, which appears when the block breaks a date down.
• Remove it with the bin icon, or press Delete.

Click a bar in a bar block to filter the whole canvas to that category (this works when the breakdown is not a date). See Filter the whole report.

The numbers are read when the report opens. Press re-run every block in the toolbar to read them all again, or run again in one block's header.

A header block is the report's masthead: its logo, name and subtitle. Press header in the toolbar to add one. A report has at most one, and it goes at the top, with everything already on the page moving down to make room.

Filter the whole report

Press filters in the toolbar. The pane titled filters · every block holds conditions that apply to every block on the canvas, so "the June pack" can be the same blocks with a different window.

You add a filter in two ways:

• Say it. Type "last 12 months", "only paid invoices" or "region is apac" into the say it box and send it. sanda turns the sentence into one condition and checks it against your fluid before adding it. If it cannot, it tells you what was missing.
• Build it. Use the condition builder under the box to pick a field, an operator and values, with the same date presets the workbench has.

A report filter on a field replaces any block's own condition on that field. A canvas filter of "last 12 months" therefore widens a block that said "last month". A filter on a named period such as "last 12 months" keeps moving with the calendar. A report takes up to 20 filters, and a filter's field has to reach every block's table, or the blocks it cannot reach refuse to run.

The filters button shows how many are active. Clicking a bar adds an is filter for that category and opens the pane, so you can see and remove it.

Comments

Each block has a speech bubble in its header. Open it to leave a note for whoever reviews the report, such as a question for the board. Comments carry your name and time, stay with the block, and go when the block goes. Only the person who wrote a comment can remove it.

Comments are working notes. They are not included in a shared link, on the portal or in copies of the report.

Zoom, pan and fit

Zoom runs from 25% to 200%. The page can never leave the window.

Save, undo and history

The canvas saves as you work. The block count in the toolbar reads saving… while a change is on its way and not saved if one failed. Closing the tab with an unsaved change asks first.

• Undo and redo with ⌘ Z and ⌘ ⇧ Z (or Ctrl on Windows), or the arrows beside the report's name. Undo goes back up to 60 changes in the current visit.
• History (the clock icon) lists saved versions of the report, newest first, each with when it was saved, how many blocks and filters it had, and who saved it. Press restore on an older one to go back to it. Restoring is a save of its own, so the version you left is kept too. A version includes the report's colours.

A save within two minutes of the newest version updates it instead of adding another, and the last fifty versions are kept. Renaming a report does not make a version.

Changes cherry makes are saved like your own edits, so you can restore an earlier version.

Templates and copies

Open the more menu (three dots) for the report-level verbs.

• duplicate report asks for a name (it suggests "name copy") and opens the copy. A copy keeps the blocks, filters and colours, and leaves behind the comments, cherry's conversation about the report and the history. Anyone who can create reports can duplicate one, including a report shared with them to read. A read-only member does not see it.
• save as template asks for a name and makes a template from the canvas as it is now. Your report stays as it is. The template appears under Templates on the Reports page, and its own canvas carries a template tag. A template is never delivered by email. On the Reports page, press new report from this to make a real report from it: it keeps the blocks, filters and colours, and the numbers are read fresh.
• delete report removes the report, its blocks and its history. It is offered to the report's author and to owners and admins, and asks you to confirm.

Print or export to PDF

Choose export pdf in the more menu, or press ⌘ P. The canvas drops its toolbar and lays the page flat at a scale that fits a landscape sheet, then opens your browser's print dialog. Use its option to save as a PDF.

This is the console's own print. A report that arrives by email has its own PDF and PNG attachments, made when the email is sent. See Schedules and delivery.

Reports that are read-only

If a report was shared with you to read, or you are a read-only member, the report opens with a read only tag and the toolbar loses its editing verbs. A read-only member also loses duplicate report, since they cannot create reports. You can still pan, zoom, and sort and export any table, because those are ways of reading. See Share a report.

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