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Adding Narrative Text to Results

Use the narrative view to add one or more paragraphs of text to appear with the reports. Narrative text is useful for providing information such as context, explanatory text, or extended descriptions. You can perform the following actions in the narrative view:

  • Type a sentence with placeholders for each column in the results.
  • Specify how rows should be separated.
  • Use formatting buttons to make text bold, italic, or underlined, and insert line breaks.
  • Apply cosmetic formatting to the fonts used in the narrative view, or import the font formatting from a previously saved view.

Example Usage Scenario for Narrative Text View

A user creates a report that returns the region name in the second column as part of the result set. The user wants the narrative view to appear as shown in the following example, with introductory text and each region listed on a new line:

This report shows your sales by region. The regions are:

East Region

West Region

The following table lists and describes the user's narrative view entries:

Field

Entry

Explanation

Prefix

[b]
This report shows your sales by region. The regions are:[/b][br][br]

The entry prefixes the narrative with text. The text is formatted to appear in bolded type and is followed by two line breaks.

The user positions the cursor into the Prefix text box and clicks the bold text button (B) to insert the tags to begin and end bolded text. The user types the following text between the tags:

This report shows your sales by region. The regions are:

The user then clicks the Line Break button twice.

Narrative

@2

The entry includes the results from the second column (the region name) in the narrative text.

The user positions the cursor into the Narrative text box and types the characters @2.

Row Separator

[br]

The entry starts each row of the narrative text on a new line.

The user positions the cursor into the Row Separator text box and clicks the Line Break button twice.

Postfix

[br][b]
End of Sales by Region report[/b]

The entry appends text to the narrative, in the same manner as the Prefix.

Reserved Characters in the Narrative View

In the narrative view, the following characters are reserved characters:

@     (at sign, unless used as a column placeholder in the Narrative text box)

[     (left bracket)

]     (right bracket)

'     (single quote)

\     (back slash)

NOTE: If you want to include a reserved character, precede it with a backward slash character (\) to escape it. For example, to include a backward slash character in narrative text, type \\.

Adding or Modifying Narrative Views

The following procedure provides the steps to construct a narrative view.

In the Prefix, Narrative, and Postfix text boxes, you can use the formatting buttons to make text appear in bold, italic or underlined type.

NOTE: To include a line break, use the Line Break button. Pressing Enter does not result in multiple lines of text.

To add or modify a narrative view

  1. In Siebel CRM On Demand Answers, create or modify the report with which you want to work, and then perform one of the following actions:
    • To add a new narrative view, navigate to the Create Layout page, click the Add View button, and select Advanced>Narrative from the views drop-down list.
    • To edit an existing narrative view, navigate to the Create Layout page, find the Narrative View, and then click the Edit View button for the narrative view.

      The workspace shows the options and settings for the Narrative view.

  2. Enter your selections for the fields in the workspace.

    The following table describes the fields.

    Narrative View Workspace Field

    Comments

    Prefix

    Specifies the header for the narrative. This text appears at the beginning of the narrative.

    Narrative

    Indicates the narrative text that will appear for each row in the results. Use @n to include the results from the designated column in the narrative. For example, @1 inserts the results from the first column in the narrative, and @3 inserts the results of the third column.

    Row separator

    Specifies a row separator tag. To use a separator other than the default for the format, enter the desired row separator in the Row Separator text box.

    Postfix

    Specifies the footer for the narrative. The text appears at the end of the narrative.

  3. To apply cosmetic formatting to the font used in the narrative view, click the Format View button.
  4. To import the font formatting from a previously saved view, click the Import Formatting from another view button and navigate to the saved view.
  5. Select the Display Results check box to preview the Narrative view.
  6. Click OK to return to the Layout Views page. Use the following buttons to move around and position the Narrative view (and other views, as required) on the page:
    • Move View Right button - select this button to move the Narrative view across the page to the right.
    • Move View Up or Move View Down button - select this button to move the Narrative view up or down the page.
    • Format View button - select this button to format the appearance of the Narrative view. You can specify Cell, Border, Background, and Additional Formatting Options (Width, Height, Indent, Right Padding, Top Padding, Bottom Padding) here.
    • Edit View button - select this button to edit the Narrative view.
    • Delete View button - select this button to delete the Narrative view.
  7. When you are done, you can Save the report with the Narrative view.

Published May 2008