Use Monarch’s Tree to Speed Navigation

by Sandy on February 20, 2008

The Tree feature available in Monarch’s report window is often overlooked.

Once your model is applied, you can often find navigate to a specific region in a large report file by using the Tree more quickly than searching with the Find feature.

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Tam February 22, 2008 at 9:17 am: Sounds like a great idea! I’ve never noticed a tree function, though, could you explain where it is?
Sandy February 22, 2008 at 10:20 am: Glad you liked it, and thanks for the question.

In the report window, go to the Edit menu. Now select Tree Definition…

All of the fields defined in your templates are listed on the left list. Select a field then click the Add >> button. Add another too, just to see how it works.

Click OK. Now in your toolbar, click the Show/hide Tree icon. It’s just to the right of the font controls. It has a picture of a folder and a couple of pages.

Take a few minutes to experiment with how the tree works when you list fields from both append and detail templates, and when you add fields for which you have multiple records with the same values, like multiple invoices for a single customer.

If you want to change the tree structure, just right click on the tree and select Tree Definition.

If you really want to push the envelope a bit, try the Find dialog when you right click the tree.

Try it on a few different reports to see how you can best take advantage of the tree feature.

Are you comfortable with the tree feature now?
Grant February 26, 2008 at 5:00 pm: Sandy,

It might be worth observing that the tree feature within Monarch is something found in the latest version.

Prior to that and going a long way back, the tree feature was to be found in Monarch PRF (Portable Report Format) files and could be accessed as usable trees by the portable report reader application that was supplied with Monarch or in stand alone form for internal or external sharing of compressed and security aware PRF files.

PRF’s are still a great way to create and distribute reports that have been ‘frozen’ for content and analysis and so provide an archival reference point as well as a means of sharing active analysis.

In my experience a very under utilized option that would potentially be a great way of sharing consistently presented and rapidly searchable information with clients or suppliers.

Probably worth an entire post of its own at some point …!

Grant