Using Sections to Format a Story

Sections are like containers for your story. They’re useful for reporting, but also for dashboarding thanks to the carousel, if you’re working with a canvas page.

Essentially, they allow you to split report information into smaller, more comprehensible and manageable parts. That’s also a great way to create comparisons quickly by laying out multiple section instances in a paginated canvas.

You can use sections to improve the layout of your stories and break down your analysis per dimension member. Once you have chosen a dimension as section filter:
  • The members are displayed in the section heading.
  • The widgets in the section based on the same model are filtered on that member.

By default, in the Styling panel, the Show all instances on pages option is enabled for all sections.

If you want to quickly browse through the members of a section in View mode, make sure to enable the Browse and search instances option in the Styling panel. When enabled, in View mode, the application displays left and right arrows in the section header so you can switch between members of a section. Additionaly, a search is available to quicly look for dimension members and browse through data.

You can customize sections and section headings in Edit mode in the Styling panel if you’re looking to further refine the design of your story. Still in the Styling panel, you can also hide the heading and guidelines of the section.

Note
  • You can’t add comments to a section.
  • Sections take the whole width of the canvas.
  • You can’t create sections within sections.
  • Some widgets can’t be placed in a section.
  • You can’t use time hierarchy dimensions as section filters.
  • You can only use level-based dimensions as section filters. Hierarchies will default to flat presentation.
  • You can’t use Planning features in a section.
Formatting a Section
You can format a section just like any other widget.

Multiple options are available so you can fine-tune the look of your section. That’s especially useful if you must replicate your company’s corporate look. You can access these options in the Styling panel by right-clicking a section and selecting Edit Styling. Most of these options are also available in the user preferences.

Note
The options available in the Styling panel are contextual and depend on your selection (i.e, section’s header or section’s body).

Along with graphic options, you can also select attributes that impacts the behavior of the section. For example, you can decide whether to paginate the section and have a dedicated page per member, or look for members manually using the left and right arrows or search bar.

Formatting Option Description
Default Body Background Select a default background color for the section body.
Default Body Border

Select a default border for the section body. You can also edit the Style, Color and Line Width.

Note
The Corner Radius is only available if you select All Borders.
Show Heading Show or hide the section heading. The section heading displays the filtered member of the section.
Show Guidelines Show or hide the section guidelines.
Browse and search instances Show controls (search bar and left/right arrows) to search for members manually.
Show all instances on pages Paginate the section and show each member on a dedicated page. You can also select whether you want the section to start on a new page.
Default Heading Background Select a default background for the section heading.
Default Heading Border Select a default border for the section heading. You can also edit the Style, Color and Line Width.
Note
The Corner Radius is only available if you select All Borders.
Default Heading Properties Select a default Font, font Color, and font Size for the section heading.
New pages, lanes and tiles Apply styling to new sections only.
All pages, lanes and tiles Apply styling to all sections.