Use Page Regions to Present your Reports and Data in Business Central (Advanced Spreadsheets)
Page regions in the Advanced Spreadsheet and reporting app for Business Central: defining regions, tabbed preview mode, one printed page per region, read-only sharing by the owner, and slicers that work on live data. Demonstrated by Eric in a 5-minute video.
- Introduction and app overview
- Spreadsheet demo and regions concept
- Examining existing regions
- Creating a new region
- Preview mode and tab navigation
- Print functionality and region ordering
- Permissions and read-only access
- Slicers and live data comparison
- Call to action and sandbox availability
Overview
Erik Hougaard shows how to define regions in a spreadsheet so the spreadsheet can be presented as a set of areas. He looks at an example with four regions, creates a new one, and then opens preview mode, where each region shows as a tab at the bottom.
He also covers printing, where each region becomes its own page, and permissions, where the owner gives other users read-only access. A user with read-only access sees only the spreadsheets shared with them. Slicers can be used in preview mode, and the data is live from Business Central. The apps are free to use in the cloud sandbox.
Key points
- Regions are defined inside a spreadsheet as screen areas that can have a background color. The demo spreadsheet had four regions.
- Tab order follows the ID given to each region (for example, P10 sorted between P1 and P2).
- In preview mode, regions appear as tabs at the bottom, and scrolling stays within the current region’s area.
- When printed, each region becomes a separate page.
- A spreadsheet must always have an owner. The owner can grant other users read-only access in Permissions, and those users see only the spreadsheets shared with them.
- For a read-only user, clicking edit opens the spreadsheet in preview mode anyway.
- Slicers (for example, to pick a date) are still selectable in preview mode, but the spreadsheet cannot be edited there.
Features
| Feature | Status | At |
|---|---|---|
| Page regions for spreadsheet presentation | status not stated, demoed | 0:38 |
| Preview mode with tabbed navigation | status not stated, demoed | 2:13 |
| Print functionality for regions | status not stated, demoed | 2:46 |
| Spreadsheet permissions and read-only access | status not stated, demoed | 3:13 |
| Slicers in preview mode | status not stated | 4:16 |
| Real-time data in spreadsheets | status not stated, demoed | 4:42 |
Quotes
- 0:38 “if we check the regions, we can see that I have four different regions defined”
- 2:13 “If I now go to preview, the screen changes. And the way it changes is that we have now tabs down here.”
- 2:57 “every one of these areas becomes a separate page”
- 3:29 “there always has to be an owner of a spreadsheet but i also got this”
- 3:42 “if I change over here’s an in private session. So this is now her access. So she goes to spreadsheet she only sees two”
Presenters (as heard): Eric.