Crosstabs: Expand Sub Tables in the Interactive Preview

As we swiftly proceed through the development process of List & Label 22, we found a slot to add one more feature to the crosstab. Starting in version 19, we've added a lot of interactivity to the preview, including a feature called "Expandable Regions" for the report container. It allows to expand sub tables by just a click. For LL22, we've now extended this feature to the crosstab.

Take the following crosstab for an example:

Crosstab bevor expanding

For brevity reasons, I’ve restricted it to fit on one page. However if I had activated the automatic fill-up feature it surely wouldn’t fit. Wouldn’t it be nice to hide the details for the year first and then only expand the year you’re interested in? That would allow to add way more levels of detail to the crosstab without making compromises to the readability. And that’s exactly, what the new feature is about. In the crosstab’s properties, set the “Expandable Region” property for the “Year” field to “True”:

Choose with area in the crosstab you would like to expand

In the preview, the “Year” columns will then be rendered collapsed and a small expansion handle will appear in the cells:

Collapsed crosstab in List & Label reporting tool

Simply click on the handle to expand the required year (and only that year):

Expanded crosstab in report designer

This is a completely new and intuitive way to drill-down on your aggregated data. It allows to browse complex data at a glance in a powerful way. And it’s really fun to use, btw :).

 

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