Basic report element properties

Report elements share some basic properties which we cover here. Properties and settings that are specific to an element type are covered in other articles.

The Element Types article discusses the high-level differences between the element types and has links to each of their specific articles.

The texts, settings, data and actions for a report element can be found together in the Properties pane.

Follow these steps to access the properties pane of a report element:

1. Go to the ReportBuilder and edit your report.
2. Click on the element you wish to customize in the element list or the view area.
3. The Properties pane will slide out on the right side of the screen.

At the top of the properties pane, you will see the title or short name of the element and the element will have a blue border around it.

The available properties will differ depending on the selected element type. This article gives a brief overview of all properties. Depending on the selected element type, you will not see options that do not apply to it.

A key concept to understand is the hierarchy of properties and how they are inherited from the level above but can be overridden at each level.

The order of inheritance is:

1. Platform (default settings of CheckMarket)
   ↓
2. Report
   ↓
3. Element

If you want a certain setting for your entire report, then do not apply it to each individual element. Instead set it at the report level and all the elements in the report will inherit that setting. For example, if you want all your element titles to be centered and blue, set that in the Report Style and not in each element.

The basic layout of the properties pane is the same for all element types. The content changes depending on which element is selected.

At the top you see the title or short name of the element you are editing and an ‘X’ to close the properties pane.

Below that are some tabs that group properties together (covered in detail further down):

• Text: The strings and captions used in the element.
• Layouts: Predefined groups of settings for some element types.
• Settings: Individual settings that affect every aspect of an element.
• Data: The sources of data to be used by the element.
• Style: Change the appearance of your element, overriding the report level styles.

Each tab is divided into logical sections with the name of the property on the left and the value on the right.

Next to the tabs is amenu of actions that only affect the current element:

• Info: View information about this element such as type and ID.
• Embed: Get iframe code to place this element in your own website or intranet.
• Duplicate: Make a copy of this element.
• Delete element: Delete this element.

• Title: the heading that is visible at the top of the element. You can optionally hide it.
• Short name: by default, the title of an element is used in the element list (table of contents) on the left side of the report. If the title is quite long, it will get cut off in the list. In that case, enter a short name here and it will be used in the element list instead. The short name is also shown at the top of the properties pane.
• Comment: Optional text at the bottom of the element. The area provided to type is not large in the properties pane. Click on the  expand button to get a larger work area. You will also see a lot more options on the toolbar, including tables and the Variables drop-down. You can also use our scripting language to add calculations or show different texts depending on values in this and other elements. Often used to provide conclusions and insights about the element data. It may also include conditional feedback and instructions on how to improve the score of the element.
• Answer Option Labels: relabel the answer options used in this element so that they are short, concise and clear. When you give two or more options the same label, the results for these answer options will be merged. Changes here do not affect the survey itself.

Select one of the available predefined layouts to quickly change how the results of this element are displayed without having to go into the settings yourself.

To further customize the element layout, use the options in the Settings tab.

The Data tab contains the sources of data that the element is based on. This can be questions, contact metadata or respondent metadata. In the data tab you can add a breakout, a benchmark or an extra data source. Additionally you can set filters for each data source separately.

• Add a breakout: This means taking the responses to the main data source and splitting them out by another data source. For instance, take a satisfaction score and break it out by gender or age categories, department etc.
• Add a benchmark: instead of setting a fixed benchmark in the Settings tab, you can also add a dynamic benchmark based on another question or based on contact or respondent metadata. The benchmark data source will ignore any other filters, including the report and share filter.
• Add an extra data source: combine data from multiple questions or from questions and contact or respondent metadata. This can be done to group questions with the same scale.