GridBuddy Connect - Step 2: Select Fields & Formatting

In Step 2 of the Grid Wizard, you can specify the fields, conditional formatting and actions that should display on the grid.

In the Select Fields section, the Choose an Object section shows you the parent object for the Grid and its related child objects. Newly created grids will automatically add the Name (or similar) field to your grid, which will be displayed in the Selected Fields section.

Search for objects using the search box at the top of the Choose Object section.

1. Click an object name to see its fields in the Choose Fields section.
2. Search for fields using the search box at the top of the Choose Fields section.
3. Select fields in the Choose Fields section by clicking the green “+” icon next to the field name. Added fields will appear in the Selected Fields section.
4. Deselect fields by clicking the red “-” icon next to the field name in the Selected Fields section.
5. Order fields by dragging them within the Selected Fields section.
6. Click the Show field API names link to see API names next to the field labels. Click Hide field API names to hide the API names.

Note: Removing a child object on an existing grid will delete all the user-defined filter(see User-Defined Filtering) and column settings (see User-defined columns).

Object Cross-Referencing

Cross-reference data from objects from other connections or from objects that don’t have a relationship with the parent object at the schema level:

• A section named Additional Objects in the Select Fields section – this lists all GridBuddy Connect-compatible objects, based upon connection, available, and they may or may not be related the parent object.
• Select the Connection as configured in Organization->Connections. This will show the list of available objects for that connection. Grids can have multiple connections related to the parent object.

Indirectly related objects can be associated in GridBuddy Connect in two ways:

1. Map the objects to a common field. For example, setup a grid of Accounts and Opportunities, matching the Opportunity records from a 2nd connection by the Account Name field to the Account’s Account Name field. The Account and Opportunity being from different connection are not natively connected, but through Object Cross-Referencing users can work with them together.

Page 2 of the Grid Wizard showing a grid additional objects from a 2nd connection with Account as the parent object and Opportunity from the second connection as a child. If a Opportunity has the same Account Name as the Account records Account Name will display as related to that Account on this grid.

To set this up:

1. Choose a connection and object from the Additional Objects section in the first pane. (This can be the same or different connection)
2. Choose the fields for the grid.
3. A new section for that object will appear in the Selected Fields section along with a mapping widget, where you specify the fields that map the parent to this object. The mapped fields should be of similar data types
4. Or use a related object. For example, setup a grid of Accounts with the Opportunities object that is a related object.

Page 2 of the Grid Wizard showing a grid with Account as the parent object and Opportunity as a children. If an Account has related Opportunity Members, either the Opportunities related to the Account will display as related to the Account on this grid.

To set this up:

1. Choose a related object from the Related section in the first pane.
2. Choose the fields for the grid.
3. The relationship between the parent and child objects is setup automatically

Object Properties

You can customize settings for individual objects on the grid. To access these settings, click the ellipsis icon next to the object’s name. 

• Label: Specify a label to show for this object on the grid.
• Plural Label: Specify a plural label to show for this object on the grid.
• Edit: Specify whether an object is editable or read-only.
• Create: Specify whether a user can create new records on this object.
• Editable Related Column: Show a comma-separated list of the first field of this object on the parent record.
• Flat View: Show the fields for this object within the same row as the parent object.

Flat View

Specify whether the fields for this object should show within the same row as the parent object. This option is only available for child objects. 

Flat Views of Child Records

To make your grids leaner, you can set up flat views. This will bring data from related objects up to the parent level. Flat views are alternatives to the hierarchical views of child data.

Flat view displays child object fields within the same row as the parent object. For example, you can create a grid of Opportunities and show Opportunity Products within the same row as the Opportunities. If an Opportunity record has multiple Opportunity Product records, then the Opportunity data will be repeated for each child record. Editing a parent record that has duplicates on the grid will propagate the edits to all duplicates. If a parent record does not have any child data, then the cells will be empty in the child object’s columns.

Click the New button at the top of the grid to create a parent record and flat view child record simultaneously. Required fields that are not on the grid will be appended to the end of the new row for parent and flat view child. If you only enter data in parent fields and save, then only a parent record will be saved (i.e. required fields of the child object will be ignored if none of the child fields have data entered in them). Note, create new is not available for “other side of the junction” objects. If an “other side of the junction” object is configured for flat view, and you click the New button at the top of the grid, the cells for the flat view object will be empty.
 

Editable Related Columns

Streamline your multi-object grids: bring your related records up as a new column on the parent to create a multi-object experience on a single row. Click on the new column to see the entire child section, only when you want to see it.

Field Properties

You can customize how a field appears on the grid by defining the following field properties: label, read-only, required, column width, and summary type. To access custom field properties, click the ellipsis icon to the right of the field name. This will open a dialog box with custom field properties: 

• Label: when a field is given a label, the label will be shown in grid headers and throughout the grid.
• Read-only: when a field is set to Read-only, users will not be able to edit this field. When a field is natively required in the object definition, it can be marked as Read-only. When a field is natively read-only in the object definition, the Required and Read-only options will be disabled.
• Required: when a field is set to Required, users will not be able to save new or existing records without filling out this field.
• Column Width: users can manually set the grid column width for text, numeric, picklist, date, date time, and checkbox fields. 
• Summary Type: for numeric fields, users can select a rollup summary type: SUM, MIN, MAX, AVG. Summaries can be applied to fields that have a numeric data type, as well as picklist and text fields that
  you know have numeric values. When enabled, summaries will display a summary row above the object’s data rows with the field values rolled up on the grid. Summary values are updated dynamically as you change the grid data. The summary only takes into account the data loaded on the page, not the entire dataset.

Note – Currently we only support summaries on parent object.

Quick Filter Options and Default Filter Operators by Data Type

Data Cards

Enable the Data Card feature to configure Primary Fields, which always appear on grids, and Data Card Fields, which are hidden initially, and accessible by clicking the Data Card icon in a grid row. To enable this feature, click the Data Card icon next to an object’s label. When the Data Card feature is enabled, the icon color turns blue and you will see the Primary Fields and Data Card Fields sections appear within the fields list.

Drag and drop to move a field from the Primary Fields section to the Data Card Fields section. Note that one primary field is required for all objects.

When enabling Data Cards, the first seven fields stay in the Primary Fields list, and the others are automatically moved to the Data Card Fields section. When selecting additional fields, if there are already seven fields in the Primary Fields section, then the additional fields will be added to the Data Card Fields section. If there are no fields in the Data Card Fields section, you’ll see a section for the user to drag fields into.

See how Data Cards look in a grid under the Data Card section.

Note, Column Width and Summary Type in the Field Properties widget are disabled for Data Card fields.



Conditional Formatting

Create conditional formatting rules to format a field based on a condition. The rules are evaluated real-time, so you’ll see your data changes when you update your grid even before you save it. Click the info icon () at the top center next to the object name to see what rules are applied to your grid (see screenshot below).
 

Conditional formatting on the Grid. The formatting rules panel is open at the top center side of the grid next to the object name. Conditional Formatting rules are configured on page 2 of the Grid Wizard in the Conditional Formatting section.

There are 3 ways to format a field or row: 

• Format a field based on its value. For this, select the same field in both field dropdowns.
• Format a field based on another field’s value. To do this, select the field to evaluate in the first dropdown and the field to format in the second dropdown.
• Format an entire row based on a field’s value. To do this, check the “entire row” checkbox.

Note on parent and related objects: You can choose to format parent objects based on whether a condition is met for one or more related objects. Some examples of what happens when a condition is met:
 

Fields:

1. Rule name: Give your rule a name that describes the rule.
2. Field Condition:
   • Evaluated field: We’ll evaluate this field’s value to see if we need to apply the formatting specified. Supported data types are: Boolean, Currency, Date, Date Time, Double, Formula, Integer, Percent, Picklist, String, and Text area.
   • Operator: Define a logical operator for the evaluation of the selected field.
   • Value: We’ll evaluate against this value to determine to apply the rule or not.
   • Add: Add another field condition to your grid for more specific filtering
3.  

1. Advanced Conditions:Optional, alter the combination of field conditions with AND and OR operators. For example: 1 AND 2 AND (3 OR 4).
2. Formatting:: We’ll evaluate against this value to determine to apply the rule or not.
   • Entire row: Optional, select this to apply the formatting to the entire row.
   • Formatted field: Optional, pick a field to apply the formatting to. The default is the evaluated field, but it can be any other field on the same object.

1. Background color: Optional, pick a color to apply as the background color.
2. Text formatting: Optional, select one or more text formatting options.
3.  

Hide fields: Optional, hide the values for a primary field, a data card field, or both based on whether a condition is met.

• If you hide a field of the parent object, the field will appear blank for any record that meets the condition.
• If you hide a field of the related object, the field won't appear at all on the data card for any record that meets the condition. The label for that field will be hidden along with the value.
• If you hide multiple fields, the first field listed in the Field Condition section determines what's shown.
  • If it's a parent object, only parent object fields will be shown.
  • If it's a related object, you can show or hide related and parent object fields.
    • Example: If Account.Employees.ID greater than 100, hide Opportunity.Amount, Account.Rating, Industry
    • Example: If Opportunity.Name (1) and then Account.AnnualRevenue.id (20), you will only be shown Opportunity fields to hide.
• Fields required for the grid cannot be hidden.
  • For example, an Opportunity.Name grid might not let you hide Stage or Forecast Category.
• If your grid includes a parent object and related object with the same name from two different orgs--for example, an Opportunity object from each of two Salesforce orgs--the identical names may cause conditional formatting to display unexpected behavior.

Popular Examples:

• If the Opportunity Amount is greater than 1000 set the background color to green.
• If the Account Rating equals Hot, set the background color to red for the entire row.
• If the Task Due Date is less than a specific date, color the Task Name blue.

When creating a rule on a Date or Date Time field, you can use these relative dates for the value:

• THIS_QUARTER
• NEXT_QUARTER
• LAST_QUARTER
• THIS_YEAR
• LAST_YEAR
• TODAY
• TOMORROW
• YESTERDAY
• THIS_WEEK
• THIS_MONTH
• LAST_MONTH
• NEXT_MONTH
• LAST_90_DAYS
• NEXT_90_DAYS
• LAST_N_DAYS:n
• NEXT_N_DAYS:n
• LAST_WEEK
• NEXT_WEEK
• LAST_N_WEEKS:n
• NEXT_N_WEEKS:n
• LAST_N_MONTHS:n
• NEXT_N_MONTHS:n
• NEXT_YEAR
• LAST_N_YEARS:n
• NEXT_N_YEARS:n
• LAST_N_QUARTERS:n
• NEXT_N_QUARTERS:n
• N_DAYS_AGO
• N_WEEKS_AGO
• N_MONTHS_AGO
• N_QUARTERS_AGO
• N_YEARS_AGO
• N_FISCAL_QUARTERS_AGO
• N_FISCAL_YEARS_AGO
• THIS_FISCAL_QUARTER
• LAST_FISCAL_QUARTER
• NEXT_FISCAL_QUARTER
• NEXT_N_FISCAL_QUARTERS:n
• LAST_N_FISCAL_QUARTERS:n
• THIS_FISCAL_YEAR
• LAST_FISCAL_YEAR
• NEXT_FISCAL_YEAR
• NEXT_N_FISCAL_YEARS:n
• LAST_N_FISCAL_YEARS:n

For a Salesforce connection, the below fiscal relative dates will pull the custom fiscal calendar configured in their Salesforce org.

For a Dynamics and SAP connection, they will default to US fiscal year start and end dates.

• THIS_FISCAL_QUARTER
• LAST_FISCAL_QUARTER
• NEXT_FISCAL_QUARTER
• NEXT_N_FISCAL_?QUARTERS:n
• LAST_N_FISCAL_?QUARTERS:n
• THIS_FISCAL_YEAR
• LAST_FISCAL_YEAR
• NEXT_FISCAL_YEAR
• NEXT_N_FISCAL_?YEARS:n
• LAST_N_FISCAL_?YEARS:n

Actions

In the Select Actions section, select one or more actions you want to enable on the grid. The actions displayed are associated to the objects you have selected and saved in the above Select Fields section. To define actions click the Manage Actions link or button.