We will introduce Parent-Child Cell Setting of FineReport reporting software in this article.Is there any relationship between each cell and interaction effect between extension directions?

1. Description

As described in the previous section, cell extension is targeted at a specific cell. When a report subject is bound to several cells, is there any relationship between each cell and interaction effect between extension directions?As shown below, drag two fields from the cell to find the rear cell is shown by groups based on the front cell in web preview:

It indicates that when a report subject is bound to several cells, those cells are naturally connected in terms of data filtering and follow extension. The front cell is called parent cell and the rear child cell. In such a relation, the data in child cell will be filtered and grouped according to the data in parent cell, and scaled by the extension direction of parent cell. Here are more details about parent cell.

2. Parent-Child Cell Relations

The extension attributes of child cell vary with those of parent cell: when a cell adjacent to its left or upper cell has extension attribute, by default its left adjacent cell is its left parent cell, and its upper adjacent cell its upper parent cell.Parent-child cell relations include: Filter relation and follow relation.

Filter relation

Filter relation means a child cell will filter the data of a parent cell as a filter condition to show data in parent-child cells accordingly. But the default filter relation is limited to a case in which the fields in two cells come from the same data set as shown above. As the data in the two cells are from the same data set, the cell of Eastern China is followed by Sales Staff of Eastern China, and the cell of North China followed by Sales Staff of North China. In case of two fields from different data sets, the child cell will follow the parent cell repeating all data; as shown below, cell A2 is adjacent to B2 on the left, so A2 is the left parent cell of B2.

Note: Apart from default addition through parent-child cells, filter relation can be added manually, as detailed later.

Follow relation

Follow relation means child cells will by default be grouped following the extension direction of parent cells, i.e., if a parent cell is vertically scaled, its child cell will follow the same direction by default. As shown above, Region cell A2 scales up and the child cell B2 scales up too; the parent cell scales out and the child cell scales out into groups while its data keep the default vertical extension. As shown below, A2 is adjacent to A3 on the top, so A2 is the upper parent cell of A3:

Note: The default extension direction is vertical extension for a cell containing fields of a data set instead of formulas, and the data will be grouped in different directions depending on the parent cells.

3. Parent-Child Cell Classification

Parent-child cells include left parent cell and upper parent cell.

Left parent cell

Left parent cell refers to a cell extending vertically following its parent cell, i.e., the parent cell extends vertically. Generally, a left parent cell is always on the left of a cell, and it is a vertical extension cell adjacent to the cell on the left by default. When the child cell is mouse clicked, the left parent cell shows a blue down arrow, as shown below:

Upper parent cell

Upper parent cell refers to a cell extending horizontally following its parent cell, i.e., the parent cell extends horizontally. Generally, an upper parent cell is always on the top of a cell, and it is a horizontal extension cell adjacent to the cell on the top by default. When the child cell is mouse clicked, the upper parent cell shows a blue right arrow, as shown below:

4. Parent-Child Cell Setting

There are three settings for a parent cell: None, default and custom, as shown below:

Custom setting

Custom setting refers to independent setting of parent cell for a designated cell through directly input of the cell or quick selection, as shown below:

Default setting

Default setting means when a data column is dragged to a cell, the cell will take, by default, a horizontal extension cell adjacent on the top or a vertical extension cell adjacent on the left as its upper parent cell or left parent cell.

Note: It is necessary that the cells are adjacent on the same row or column; otherwise, custom setting is required.

In addition: When the left adjacent cell of a cell has no extension attribute, it will seek leftwards or upwards a cell with extension attribute to identify its parent cell.

None

None means the cell has no parent cell, as shown below:

For the address of online video in the section of Parent-Child Cell Setting, please refer to [Cell Extension and Parent-Child Cell]