Grid design in Facility and ePortal - Part 5 (adding additional columns)

It is possible to add additional columns of data between the left hand names column and the grid itself.

Create a new attendance grid design in the usual way:

1. From the main menu in Facility, select Attendance | Advanced | Grid design for Roll Call attendance
2. Highlight ‘AttendanceRolls’, which is the default grid that comes with the system
3. Change the name in the Name field to something like ‘MyGrid3’
4. Click New
5. Highlight the 'MyGrid3' grid and click Configure

To add an additional column:

1. Click on the Columns tab
2. Click Clear to empty the fields in the bottom part of the window
3. In the Title field, enter the title you wish to give your column
4. In the Contents field,click F9 and choose the data item you wish to show in the column
5. In the Sort field, enter 1. This will ensure the column appears before the grid.
6. Click New. The new column now appears in the list view in the top part of the window.
7. Click OK
8. Click Modify

So, to add a column that displays the student's class group, we would:

• Put 'Class' in the Title field
• Put '1' in the Sort field
• Put 'Student.cls.code' in the Contents field

Which should give you a grid that looks something like this:

You can apply all the usual formatting options discussed in previous grid design articles to make the new column blend in with your existing ones.

A note on conditional formatting in additional columns 

If you wish to use conditional formatting on an additional column and you use the F9 key to insert a data item, you need to remove 'stuattendance' from the text that gets inserted.

For instance, if you used the F9 key to create the following condition:

Stuattendance.Student.Cls.Code='7C'

...you should edit it so that it reads:

Student.Cls.Code='7C'