Everything a report shows — text, numbers, tables, charts, lines — is a control in a band. The controls are in the Toolbox, the vertical bar on the left; their name appears when you point to them with the mouse.
The toolbox
| Control | Used for |
|---|---|
| Label | a fixed text or a value from the data, including totals; the control you need most often |
| Table | rows and columns with cells that behave like a Label — see Tables |
| Chart | bars, lines, pies — see Charts |
| Cross Tab | a cross tab, for example skills against weekdays — see Cross tabs |
| Page Info | page number, date and time or user name — see Page number and date |
| Picture Box | an image, for example the company logo |
| Line | a line |
| Shape | rectangle, ellipse, arrow and other shapes |
| Panel | a frame that holds several controls together |
| Check Box | a yes/no value as a box |
| Rich Text | formatted text with varying fonts |
| Gauge, Sparkline | a dial or a small line chart in a row |
| Page Break | a new page at any position |
| Cross-band Line, Cross-band Box | a vertical line or a frame across several bands |
| Barcode, Character Comb, Table of Contents, PDF Content, PDF Signature, Sub-Report | for special purposes; rarely needed in contact center evaluations |
At the very top is the Pointer, which you use to select and move controls.
Inserting
- Drag a control from the toolbox into a band.
- Or click it and draw a rectangle of the desired size in the band.
- A double-click inserts it at the top left of the Detail band.
- Fields dragged from the Field List onto the surface immediately become bound controls — see Data and expressions.
Selecting and arranging
- Selecting: Click the control; to select several, use Ctrl+click or Shift+click or draw a frame. You select hard-to-reach controls in the Report Explorer or in the drop-down list at the top of Properties.
- Moving and resizing: with the mouse or the arrow keys; the controls snap to the grid and to snap lines, and Alt while dragging turns this off.
- Aligning: Select several controls and align them with each other on the Layout tab, or make their sizes and spacing equal.
- Copying: drag with Ctrl or use the clipboard, also into another band.
- Overlaps are shown hatched by View › Show › Export Warnings. Overlapping controls cause problems when exporting to Excel, Word or HTML.
The smart tag
Two small buttons appear at the top right of the selected control: the gear opens the smart tag with the most important settings, the “f” opens the expression of the control. For the Label control, the smart tag contains, among other things, Expression, Format String and Summary. You find all other settings under Properties.
You type a fixed text directly into the control: double-click the control, type, Ctrl+Enter.
When the content is longer
Under Properties or on the Text Tools contextual tab:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Can Grow | the control gets taller if the text does not fit |
| Can Shrink | the control gets shorter or disappears if it is empty |
| Word Wrap | long text wraps instead of being cut off |
| Auto Width | the width follows the text |
Controls in containers
Panel and table cells hold other controls. However, myContactCenter does not prepare values in a Panel: durations appear there as a number of seconds, conversation types untranslated — see What myContactCenter prepares when running. So place values directly in a band or in a table.