Shared commenting is a way to display and edit the same comments across different BI platforms and even across slightly different data models as long as they share common properties, most likely one or more common dimensions.

Those properties are defined in input groups that a designer can create and maintain. When creating a comment column in a table, you must define such a input group.

How does it work?

Each comment is a member of a input group. These input groups define keys that define the conditions of displaying a comment and are stored together with the comment through the trueChart Service.

Configuring input groups

Input groups are configured in the admin menu of trueChart. In the Input group section, you will get an overview of all input groups currently available.

Creating a input group

Input groups are created and maintained in the TRUECHART admin panel in the section Input groups.

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Here you will see a list of all available input groups and you will be able to create new ones by clicking on the Add new button.

General settings

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Name

Set a name for the input group.

Description

Set an optional description for the input group. The description is being shown when applying the input group to a comment measure or a comment visualization.

Tags

You can add tags to a input group.

Password

Input groups can be password-protected. By clicking on Set password, you can set a password for the input group and protect its settings.

Input group types

Value input

For value inputs, a Minimum, Maximum and Step size can be defined.

Comment input

For input groups of type ‘comment’, you can set the following parameters:

• By setting a Maximum text length, you can define a limit of how many characters can be entered for that comment.
• The Placeholder is the placeholder being shown in the comment field before any text has been entered. If nothing has been entered, a default placeholder is being shown.
• The Placeholder position setting defines whether the placeholder is being shown at the top of the comment field, at the bottom or none at all.

List input

For list input groups, you can define a list of possible values to choose from.

For entry, you must define a Key and optionally a Description that is being shown in the dropdown of available entries. If no description has been given, the key is shown instead.

With the Default toggle, you can set a default entry that will be pre-selected before the user selects another value.

Date input

For date input groups, you can set a Minimum and a Maximum date to choose from.

Flag input

For flag input groups, you can choose the default value of the flag by choosing Set or Unset for the Default setting.

Creating keys

Key

Set a name for the key. This name is being shown when applying the input group to a comment measure.

Type

Choose a type for the key. This can be Dimension or Variable.

• Dimension keys allow associating dimensions from the data context in the mapping process.
• Variable keys allow associating variables from the data context in the mapping process.

Default

Set a default value that applies when nothing can be mapped to this key.

Tags

Optionally set tags for the key.

Description

Set an optional description for the key. The description is being shown when applying the input group to a comment measure.

Using a input group

Comment measures

For comment measures, you need to define a input group. This is being done via the Input group section in the measure settings:

The dimension keys that are defined in the input group config are offered here to map against the actual dimensions in your data context.

By assigning a dimension, the respective values of the dimensions are being used to store together with the comment. As long as those conditions are met, the comment is shown in any comment measure using the same mapping.

Using shared comments for budgeting or forecast

With the new comment feature, you extend your capability in creating budget plans or forecasts. With TRUECHART you are able to visualize the difference of your expectations and actual numbers - for making decisions based on data.

Here you can find out what benefits the feature brings for your workflow.

In this example, we use a data source with two-time dimensions (year, month) and one key figure (costs based on the month). We will create one planning table and one time chart to visualize your data. For the sake of this tutorial, we will create both charts at one sheet but you can also use different apps for entering planning and for the visualization. So first things first, we prepare the sheet with two instances of TRUECHART and map the dimensions and key figures to both extensions.

Create and map the new input group

Now, we need to create a new input group of the type 'value input'. We give it a name and define two keys named 'Month' and 'Year'.

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The next step is adding a new 'value input' measure in the measure settings in one TRUECHART extension. After selecting the created input group, we also map the dimensions: month → month and year → year.

Setting up the input table

After the context is prepared we can set up our planning table in TRUECHART. By clicking on the table button in the content-type selector, we can create our table and set up it:

Setting up a time chart

In our example, we want to visualize the difference between the budget and the actual cost of our department.

So at the second TRUECHART extension, we select a time chart as a visualization. As our goal is to visualize the delta between the budget and the reported costs, we need to create a new keyfigure to calculate this value. In the data settings, we create a new measure of the type 'Measure' called 'Δ(Budget,Costs)'. As expression we add '$(K02; Budget) - $(K01; Costs)'. This measure will now calculate the difference between the entered budget and the costs.

At the cell settings of the time chart, we configure that keyfigure to be displayed as a waterfall chart.

Final result

You are now able to edit the budget column at the table. Whenever you change a value, you can directly see the impact of your changes in the time chart. This also works across apps, sheets and BI systems.