In any system implementation it’s a good idea to have standards and guidelines for development and presentation. Clarity is no different. When all Clarity templates and reports have a common look and feel, users know what to expect and a level of professionalism is achieved. For example having light yellow as input cells on some templates and light blue on other would be very confusing for users. Likewise if the standard input cell color is used on reports for non-input. Standard are also important to report and template development with respect to naming conventions of objects and files.
I’m not going to say what your guidelines should be, every client has different requirements. What I would like to provide is a template designers can use to document their standards to ensure consistency during an implementation and beyond. Although I’m going to cover some highlights in this blog entry, the OLAP Solutions full Clarity 7 Report and Templates Guidelines can be found on the resource page. This White Paper will cover this topic in more detail and provide a great starting document to build your own guidelines!
For this post I’m going to discuss standards for the following areas:
- Excel Canvas
- Left-hand Toolbar
The White-Paper includes addition entries for:
- Page Options
- Traffic Lighting
- Features
- Naming Convention for Report Designers
Excel Canvas
Clarity templates and reports represent the primary input and visual representation of your system to the users and so it is critical to improve adaptation and usability that strict standards be followed when designed these interfaces. The following table lists the main items I recommend to apply standards, along with some examples.
| Property Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Title | ||
| Font | Arial | Font used for the entire report / template |
| Title Background Color | Differs by environment – each environment should have a standard different from the other environments. | |
| Title Font Color | Black | Color used for Title font |
| Title Font Size | 18, Bold | Font size and other attributes of the Title font |
| Selection criteria under title | ||
| Background color | White | (Red:Green:Blue::255:255:255) |
| Font Color | Black | |
| Font size | 12, Bold | |
| Selection criteria for the column Header | ||
| Background color | Same as Title Color | |
| Font Color | Black | Color used for Header font |
| Start Row | 12 | Hide all the rows after one blank line from title |
| Font Size | 10, Bold | |
| Selection Criteria for Data | ||
| Background Color | ||
| Display field | White | This is a standard color choice with ratio: (Red:Green:Blue::255:255:255) |
| Input field | Yellow | (Red:Green:Blue::255:255:204) |
| Font Color | Black | |
| Font Size | 10 | Make sure No Bold |
| Criteria for Sub-Total | ||
| Background Color | Grey | (Red:Green:Blue::192:192:192) |
| Font Color | Black | |
| Font Size | 10, Bold | |
| Calculated Field | ||
| Background Color | Grey | (Red:Green:Blue::192:192:192) |
| Font Color | Black/Red | Use red (255:0:0) in case of alert |
| Font Size | 10 | |
| Other Areas | ||
| #Missing Member Display | 0 | Will be changed to appropriate display based on Excel cell formatting |
| Cell Formatting | Comma separatorRed negativeBracket negativeDash for zero$ on Total Row | Excel custom format string:_-* #,##0_-;[Red](#,##0);_-* “-“_-;_-@_-For Total Row:_($* #,##0_);[Red]_($* (#,##0);_($* “-“??_);_(@_) |
| Borders | Data = GreyHeaders = Black | Light gray 25%Decimal: 12632256 / HEX = C0C0C0 |
Left-Hand Toolbar
Nothing is more annoying than using a report or template, wanting to export the sheet to Excel and not finding the toolbar item required. Personally I find there to be 5 or 6 toolbar items that I include on every template or report – no matter what. For your organization this list may be include more or less items, but you users will appreciate that the list is fairly consistent and contains the items they require.
The following table lists my standard toolbar items for both OLAP templates and reports. The list is slightly different for relational templates and report, but mostly the same – so I won’t include them in this post. For further details on these please see the white paper on the resources page.
OLAP Template
| Section | Toolbar Item | Notes |
| Options | ||
| Select Options | ||
| Open In Excel | ||
| Import from Excel | ||
| Print Preview | ||
| Online Help | Only where content exists | |
| Notes | ||
| Cell Notes | ||
| Highlight Cell Notes | ||
| Template Notes | ||
| Notes Summary | ||
| Data | ||
| Save | ||
| Retrieve | ||
| Format | ||
| Row | ||
| Column | ||
OLAP Report
| Section | Toolbar Item | Notes |
| Options | ||
| Select Options | ||
| Open In Excel | ||
| Print Preview | ||
| Cascade | ||
| Online Help | Only where content exists | |
| Notes | ||
| Cell Notes | ||
| Highlight Cell Notes | ||
| Template Notes | ||
| Notes Summary | ||
| Data | ||
| Save | For row notes only | |
| Retrieve | ||
| Format | ||
| Row | ||
| Column | ||