Overview

The Report Editor is the core authoring tool used to create and modify Cosmos reports. It is an Excel add-in that makes it quick and easy to create reports in Excel Online. 

This article walks through the main components of the Report Editor and how to use it to effectively create Cosmos reports.

Details

Accessing the Report Editor

To access the Report Editor, you will first need to navigate to the Cosmos ribbon at the top of Excel and then click the Report Editor button. 

Once the Report Editor has been opened once for a report, Cosmos will remember that it is a Cosmos report and will open the Report Editor task pane automatically every time the report is opened. 

Report Editor Navigation

The Report Editor consists of three primary tabs:

• Report Editor
  • The Report Editor tab contains all the tools to create, modify, and structure reports. 
• Preview
  • The Preview tab will display any Report Options that have been specified for the report and will enable the user to run a preview of the report to see what the finished version looks like.
• Settings
  • The Settings tab contains general settings to give the user greater control over the report authoring experience in the Report Editor.

Report Editor Tab

The Report Editor tab contains all the tools needed to quickly build robust Cosmos reports. The tab is broken down into four main sections: Report Options, Report Sheets, Range Lists, and Fields.

Report Options

The Report Options section enables the user to add report options (filters) quickly and easily to a report. These are filters that are going to be set when the report is run and will typically apply to most areas of the report.

Report Sheets

The Report Sheets section is used to tell Cosmos that when the report is run the current sheet should be copied based on values that the user specifies. For example, if this were a financial statement and you wanted to have a sheet for each department within the organization, setting the current sheet as a Report Sheet List on department would accomplish this.

Range Lists

The Range List section controls all the list functions in the current sheet. These are the functions that will create lists of data that the user would like to see, such as a list of all the GL accounts that had transactions last month or a list of all the customers associated with a particular salesperson.

Fields

The Fields section controls all the additional data that the user would like to add into the report related to list functions. For example, the user may want to create a list of customers using the Range List section and then add functions in the Fields section to retrieve information such as the customer's name, city, state, country, and total sales for the year. The Fields section is primarily used to add context to the values being created by list functions.

Preview Tab

The Preview tab enables the user to run a preview version of the report to see what the final report will look like. This can be especially useful during the report authoring process when the user makes a few changes and then wants to confirm that the changes are working as expected prior to making more changes or publishing the report for end users.

If Report Options have been specified for the report the user will be able to set filters for these on this screen. The user can then click the Run Preview to run the report or Download Preview to download the latest preview copy of the report.

Settings Tab

The Settings tab contains options for the user to control how they want their experience to be within the Report Editor. 

From the Settings tab the user can set what is shown in the Report Editor tab based on the context of the cell that the user currently has selected in Excel and can enable different tools to help with the report authoring process.