I’m starting to roll out ability to Edit Columns on almost all tabular screens.
There are several reasons for it.
Quite a few topics in ideas category require addition of new columns to already cluttered screens. So instead of adding even more columns, I’m going to be heading in opposite direction. Keep defaults very basic and straightforward and empower users to add additional columns as they require. This will allow to add many more columns to choose from so those who need them will have them and those who don’t need them won’t see them. It’s win-win for everyone.
There is an unfortunate checkbox on custom fields named Show custom field as a column. Now that single custom field definition can be used across multiple document types, this checkbox is not appropriate. Instead of having this checkbox on custom field, you will be able to control visibility of custom field column directly on tabular screens through Edit Columns button. This way if you have custom field shared between invoices and quotes, you can show it as a column on quotes but not invoices. That’s just one example.
For heavy users, this will allow Manager to scale better. Some columns require more time to render. If these “heavy” columns can be hidden, we can show every screen almost instantly no matter how much data it contains.
Currently Edit Columns is global for every user but it could evolve so Edit Columns could be configured per user. This will allow to hide or show specific columns per user.
Edit Columns functionality is a foundation of upcoming new custom reports.
Example
Let’s take a look at Journal Entries screen.
By default, we show the following columns (click Edit Columns button):
As you can see, you can reorder and unselect columns you are not interested in. For example, you can hide Debit and Credit columns and select Accounts column that will show you list of individual accounts used in journal entries. Now imagine we have many columns to choose from across all screens. This will allow you to customize the program closer to what you consider ideal for your business.
Really great addition @lubos,
It’ll be useful for reordering the columns and hide those not necessary for printed documents.
Is it available only on Journal Entries for now? (because I wanted to do some trial on sales invoice)
And as it is available only on tabular screen(not on individual form’s edit screen),
If I make any change on the forms column, lets say Journal Entries,
will it applicable to all the Journal Entries (which already created and future ones)
means will it make changes to all the Journal Entry forms?
@Shan, this new feature applies only to tabular screens, as the developer announced in his first sentence. There is no crossover to individual transaction forms, which are controlled by options in Form Defaults.
That is not what this feature does. It controls the tabular lists only, not printed documents.
Opening post begins with the words, “I am starting to roll out….” Journal entries was the first place. But there have already been several updates since then. You will not see an announcement of every incremental step.
@Lubos please note that there is a display issue when enabling all the Columns and putting accounts to the end for the payment screen, see below. It is correct with the receipts screen, see also below.
Payment screen with same edit column settings as receipts screen runs off the page.
I wouldn’t call this an issue per se. This is the result of decoupling of business name container width and content width for dynamic rendering on small screens.
Now, whenever the content exceeds the screen size, only the content would expand and not the business name container.
Adding this to drill down from the summary screen would be beneficial to me.
The specific option I’m looking for is the ability to show if a transaction has an attachment. This is valuable when looking for validation documentation which is not always attached to every transaction.
I just noticed that you can now show the last reconciliation as a column in Bank and Cash Accounts. This is great but nothing shows if the reconciliation attempt was successful or not.
@lubos can you expose the status of the last reconciliation in the Bank and Cash Accounts tab as well?
Please also consider to add “Inventory location” as a column in “Inventory Write-offs”.
I believe that is possible (given that is one write-off entry per inventory location) and would be finally beneficial.
