Some feedback on the report filter changes that others may want to add on to

Timothy French · 12/07/20

Logging in today I saw that the report filters had undergone some changes. At first glance, it looks great.

Upon actual use though, a certain issue arose quickly. This is mostly due to the formatting of the filter selection window drop down.

Column headers are cut short with nothing to show the full name even when the mouse hovers over the selection. This leaves me looking at multiple columns for filtering that look the same due to the beginning of them being the same.
This is also true for any other selection that can be made that is around 20+(?) characters. It is cut off to a "...". This directly affects some of the date range selections leaving you to not know exactly what you might be using to filter. e.g. "is not in the last(..." or "is not in the l...", then it wants you to "Enter value", but what does the value represent? Days? Months? Years?

In short, it seems like these will either need a mouse hover over pop out to show the full value/readout from the selected column/filter, or the display itself needs to be width re-sizable on the fly so we can make what we want shown as needed (expanding left to right character limits).

Anyone else experiencing similar issues today?

Madyson Morris · 12/16/20

Hey everyone! I just posted about some enhancements to the builder.

Here is the post

Chris Mondeau · 12/07/20

Adding to the thread: I noticed that the "Sheet Name" option for sheet reports and summary reports is no longer available. While this never seemed to work as expected for sheets, summary reports was still available and extremely useful. Now it's replaced with "select field".

Veronique Perks · 12/07/20

My overall reaction to this change is 'please roll back the update' and bring back the old format. Everything is more finicky and complicated to confirm things. We accidentally clicked on the checkbox for the sheets to select and get all 130 sheets in our workspace for a report. This wouldn't have happened in the other way of managing reports.

We have a lot of new staff joining and are always creating new reports off our main trackers. Before you just select their name for the column and it popped up. Now we have to guess how their name is formatted in the assigned to or collaborator column instead of it just coming up like it used to.

I'm sure the intent of this change was to provide more functionality but for now, it leaves me ice cold and unhappy. It is LESS user friendly then what we had before. Why break something that didn't need fixing???

S_Karkhoff · 12/08/20

I do like the ability to have more than one grouping for filters. There have been many times were we will need to create 2 reports just to get the data needed. However, I agree that there needs to be some type of hover option to show the full column name when you're just looking at the filters.

I was also looking forward to the grouping and summary options, but those tabs seem to be missing from both my instances. I've already submitted a ticket to support, but wondering if anyone else has the same issue? This is all I see for filters:

MarcRNelson · 12/08/20

Same issue here with missing grouping and summarize functions. It does not look like the roll out is going as planned.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/73760/new-reporting-functionality-grouping-etc

Stacie Davis · 12/08/20

I agree there needs to be some tweaking to these new broken down functions of filter. I made the mistake of unchecking the filter on a vendor's report which allowed them to see other vendor's data. Had to figure out how that happened and then made the fix to their report. Thankful for honest vendors.

The other issue I have is when choosing filters, you can't see the entire text of a column and on our reports, we have headers with the same description but a little difference to identify value and locations. (i.e., Unallocated Inventory total, Unallocated Inventory-US, Unallocated Inventory-Intl, Unallocated Inventory-US Value, Unallocated Inventory-Intl Value) choosing the wrong one is adding unnecessary time to run a filter.

Another issue is the time it takes to remove a filter. Before you had the trashcan icon or you could just click on the 'x' under the what section of filter (book icon) and now you have to click on the three dots to choose delete.

I think a report filter should not list the default column headers that has created the report (would help to avoid the scenario of vendors seeing other vendor's confidential data).

Stacie Davis · 12/08/20

Another issue with the new filter functions, it doesn't show values in a field that is set up as a drown down list as it used to be in the old filter option. Now you have to type it in instead of choosing from the list.

ScionoftheNight · 12/09/20

I have an issue where when I open the columns, the scroll wheel and bottom most column is bugging out so that it is flickering in and out of existence. If I had epilepsy I would be triggered by this. Really appalled by this update, especially how it came out on a weekend without any email & release notes. How did this ever past user acceptance testing?

S_Karkhoff · 12/09/20

This is what I received from support when I inquired about not having the group or summarize options:

I have seen others post screenshots of the group and summary options, and looked at the report section in the Center of Excellence, which refers to those options. I am an early adopter, but still see nothing. A little frustrated with this release!

Karla Bumann · 12/09/20

New report builder - differences between browsers

Is anyone else noticing problems as a result of the new report builder release between different browsers?

Google Chrome Version 87.0.4280.66 (Official Build) (64-bit)
1. New columns added to underlying source sheet post-release are not available/appear in the new report builder filter;
2. New columns added to the underlying source sheet post-release are not available/appear in the 'columns' filter (cannot be added to the report)
Windows Microsoft Edge Version 87.0.0664.55 (Official Build) (64-bit)
1. New columns added to underlying source sheet post-release are available as a filter and can be added to the report; however, columns which I've removed (via Chrome browser) are still present in the report when viewing via MS Edge....

...and 'yes'. I've refreshed each browser tab and restarted each browser. From my usage, there appears there some significant problems with the new report builder and different browser compatibility/user experience.

S_Karkhoff · 12/09/20

Another update from Smartsheet support regarding Group and Summary filters:

Madyson Morris · 12/16/20

Hey everyone! I just posted about some enhancements to the builder.

Here is the post

Melitta King · 12/17/20

Total # on reports

On the previous reports, you could "refresh" and it would run the report and tell you the total it was returning.

Now you have to either scroll down to see that information or add (to every report) a summary that will total and add that to the top of the report.

It's good to have a workaround, but I'm not excited about the effort to add that to each and every report when it was automatically provided to me when running the report in the past.

Support has confirmed that that functionality has been removed and they will put it on the list to possibly add but with no known idea of when that could be, which is quite unfortunate.

Some feedback on the report filter changes that others may want to add on to

Best Answer

Answers

Categories