Dec 05, 2011

Export/Email Dashboard as PDF file

Zoho Analytics now has the ability to export and email dashboards as PDF. To export or email a dashboard as a PDF file, follow the below steps:

• Open the required dashboard and select the Export option from the toolbar.
• Select one of the following options:
  • Export as PDF - To export the dashboard in Portable Document Format (PDF).
  • Email as PDF - To email the dashboard as an attachment (PDF) to the email address specified.
• Provide the required Format options and click the Export button to export the Dashboard as PDF or click Send button to Email the Dashboard as PDF.

Explorer Tree Enhancements

• In the Explorer view, the database's Field List panel at the left can now be collapsed/expanded by clicking on the arrow provided at its border.
• In the Explorer tab and Field List panel, the expanded/collapsed state of folders is now preserved across sessions. i.e., a user can view the folders in the previous expanded/collapsed state when he/she reopens a database.

October 04, 2011

Criteria based sharing

Zoho Analytics now offers a powerful feature that allows you to define a criteria when sharing a view/report/dashboard. The defined criteria will determine the data that will be displayed in the view to the shared user.
When a report is shared to a user(s) with an associated filter criteria, the specified criteria will be applied on the report shared, there by filtering the data viewed when user accesses the report.
For example, if you want to share a Sales report to a Manager taking care of the East region, you can apply the criteria like "Region = 'East' " (assuming Region is a data column) and share it to him. When the Manager accesses the report he will see the sales report with data only from East region and not all regions.
Share Criteria provides you the flexibility to share the same report to different users but with appropriate criteria associated (data scope), so that everyone will see what is permitted to them in that report. This feature thereby reduces the need for creating multiple reports to address this need.
A new tab called Filter Criteria tab has been provided to define filter criteria in the Share dialog box, which comes on invoking Share -> Share This View to New Users in the toolbar

September 15, 2011

New Feature: Conditional Formatting

Newly added Conditional formatting feature allows you to highlight cells of a column with different background color and font color to make them easily identifiable and unique. In conditional formatting, you have to specify the required conditions/criteria for formatting. When data in a cell meets the condition, Zoho Analytics applies the corresponding formatting style that you have specified.

To apply conditional formatting:

• Select the column (by clicking the header) on whose cells you want to apply conditional formatting.
• Either right click to get the pop up menu or invoke Column Properties option in the toolbar.
• In the pop up menu, select Conditional Formatting option.
• A dialog box appears with options for specifying the conditions and selecting colors for font and background.
• Click the drop down arrow under Condition header and select the type of the condition that you want to apply.
• Type the matching value that you want to use for the condition in the Value text box.
• Select the required colors for the font and background and then click OK.
• All the cells that meets the criteria will be formatted accordingly.

You can add any number of conditions using +Add Another Rule option at the bottom of the dialog box.
Conditional formatting is currently supported in Tables, Tabular Views and Query Tables only.

August 30, 2011

Scheduled Emailing of Reports

Zoho Analytics now supports periodic emailing of reports. Tables, charts, pivot/summary tables, dashboards can all be scheduled to be emailed. You can choose from a variety of scheduling options:

• Daily - repeat every [x days]
• Weekly - repeat every [x weeks]; repeat on [week day]
• Monthly - repeat every [x months]; repeat by [day of month] or [day of week]
• Yearly - repeat every [x years] on [y month z day]

Scheduled emailing is now available for all paid users of Zoho Analytics and is accessible under the Expo

July 19, 2011

Cascading User Filters

Zoho Analytics now allows you to set up cascading user filters i.e., the list of values available in one User Filter depends on the value that you have chosen in the preceding User Filter(s). This feature ensures that you only select valid filter values at any time. It also reduces the time taken to scroll through a long list of filter values to select from.
For example, let's say you have one user filter to filter Product Category, and a second filter to filter Products in a report. If you select Furniture in the Product Category filter, only the products which comes under the category Furniture will be listed in the drop down list of the Products filter, instead of listing all the products.
To set cascading behavior for a user filter, while creating it, in the Choose Value tab of user filter settings dialog box, select the value List only relevant values for the option Behavior when user filte

June 30, 2011

Resizing Dashboard Widgets

Zoho Analytics now allows you to resize the widgets (individual reports that are embedded) in your Dashboard. This helps you have a flexible and better layout for your dashboard.

To resize dashboard widgets:

• Click the Edit Design button
• Hover your mouse over the widget borders you want to resize. The cursor changes to a double arrow.
• Resize the widget's height/width as needed, by dragging its boundaries.

More Sorting Options in Charts

Zoho Analytics has added two more Sorting options for sorting a chart based on the axis values. When your chart contains a String or Date column in one axis and Numeric column in the other, you can sort values in the String/Date column based on the numeric data in either ascending or descending order.
New options that have been added are:
Options when Y- axis has numeric column and X- axis has String/Date column:
By Y-value - Ascending: Sorts values in x-axis based on Y-values ordered from smallest to largest
By Y-value - Descending: Sorts values in x-axis based on Y-values ordered from largest to smallest
Options when X-axis has numeric column and Y-axis has String/Date column:
By X-value - Ascending: Sorts values in Y-axis based on X-values ordered from smallest to largest
By X-value - Descending: Sorts values in Y-axis based on X-values ordered from largest to smallest

May 21, 2011

Summary View Improvements

Sort capability is now added in Summary View. You can now sort records by a specific column in Ascending or Descending order by clicking on the arrow in the column header.

View Underlying Data

Now, you can view the source data underlying a data cell of your Summary View. Source Data that makes up the cell value will be displayed in a pop-up table when you click on the data cell of your Summary View.

Include/Exclude Hidden Columns in Exported PDFs

Previously, when a view with hidden columns is exported as a PDF file, the hidden columns got exported along with all of the other columns. Now, this functionality has been changed so that hidden columns will be excluded in the exported PDF file by default. A new option Include Hidden Columns has also been added in the Export > As PDF > Settings page. This enables you to include the hidden columns in the exported PDF.

Ring Chart Visual enhancement

On mouse over effects and slice percentage labels has been added to Ring Charts.

Quick Search Box

A search box has been added to the tool bar of Table, Tabular View and Query Table, thus making search within a table easier and quicker.

April 20, 2011

Scheduled Periodic Import of data from Google Spreadsheets

You can now setup scheduled periodic import of data from Google Spreadsheets.
When importing data from your Google Spreadsheets into Zoho Analytics, you will find a link Would you like to schedule this import periodically? in the Import Data Details dialog box, which will be shown after the third step in the import wizard. Clicking on this link will open Schedule Settings dialog box, which provides options to schedule your data import periodically.

User Filter Criteria shown in Exported PDF

When exporting a report as a PDF file, you can now choose to show details of the User Filters that you have applied on the report in the exported PDF.

You can enable this while exporting a report as PDF as follows:

• Select the report(s) to be exported (which has the User Filters applied).
• Invoke Export this View -> As PDF option in the tool bar.
• In the Export as PDF: Settings tab, select the option Show User Filter Criteria.
• Click Export, to export the report(s) as a PDF.

The generated PDF will include the user filters applied for each of the report.

Feb 17, 2011

Lookup Column Enhancements

Previously in Zoho Analytics, if two tables are connected using a Lookup column, when you delete a row in the parent table, its corresponding row(s) in the child table will get deleted automatically (On Delete Cascade). But now, you have one more option - Set NULL to the corresponding values in the child table. If this option is chosen and a row in the parent table is deleted, respective rows in the child table won't get deleted. Instead, the values in the matching column in the child table will be set to NULL.

Add Lookup Column option has been added to the Add menu at the top menu bar and also in the cell's right click context menu.

User Filter Enhancements

Previously, only 100 distinct values were shown in a User Filter dropdown list. Now, all values are listed. Also, a search box has been added to make it easy for users to search for a particular value in the user filter dropdown.

X-axis Tick Label Orientation in Charts

In charts, now you can change the orientation of X-axis tick labels, if your labels are too crowded to read. To change the label direction, select Axis tab in the Settings dialog box and then select the desired direction in the Text Direction for X-axis drop-down box.
The following label orientations are available for the X-axis:

• Auto - Automatically chooses the most appropriate direction for the labels based on the number of values.
• Horizontal - This option places the labels in horizontal direction.
• Vertical - This option places the labels in vertical direction (90-degree angle).
• Slanting - This option places the labels slanted at 45-degree angle.

Jan 17, 2011

Aggregate and Statistical Functions support in Formula Columns

Zoho Analytics continues to expand the set of in-built functions available when you create formula columns in a Table. Support for Aggregate and Statistical functions has now been newly added, over and above the already existing comprehensive list of Date, Numeric, String and General functions.

Supported Aggregate and Statistical in-built functions are listed below:
Aggregate Functions - Sum, Average, Max, Count, Standard Deviation and Variance.
Statistical Functions - Mean, Median and Mode

The newly supported Aggregate and Statistical functions will further enable advanced analytics in Zoho Analytics.

Copy & Paste feature in Table View

The Spreadsheet like view that displays the data in your Tables in Zoho Analytics now supports Copy & Paste of data, enabling easy data manipulation. You can now copy a cell or row(s) in the table and paste it anywhere in the sheet.
The Copy and Paste options are available in the context menu on right-clicking the corresponding cell or row. You can also use the standard Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V keyboard shortcuts for the same.