You use Syft to create beautiful, interactive reports that are easy to share and interpret. Part of the appeal of using the software is likely the ability to build these reports quickly and easily, at scale.
One crucial area that has historically been a bit of a speed bump in this process is setting up layouts across all your entities. Setting up your layouts on Syft is a really important first step in creating beautiful and understandable reports. But, if you have multiple entities, this can be a time-consuming process. Well, not any more!
It’s just become much quicker to set up your layouts with the ability to share layouts across multiple entities in a matter of clicks. Let’s investigate how this works.
What’s new 🧐
You can now create a template layout and share it across some or all of your entities. The setup takes less than five minutes and then you’re ready to build beautiful reports for all your entities!
How does this work? Easy. Navigate to Layouts, create your layout, check that there aren’t any ambiguities within your COA that could create potential issues when it’s shared with other entities, and hit the share button. Our smart share tool will also alert you to potential sharing issues that could arise, allowing you to rectify these before bulk sharing.
Important notes 📝
While this is a potential game-changer when it comes to efficiently setting up your entities’ layouts, there are a few things to note before you begin:
This does not apply to consolidations: You can’t share layouts to or from consolidations. If you have a consolidation with underlying entities that are linked to the overarching layout, you can’t share this layout from the underlying entity. However, you can break the link for an underlying entity, which will give you the option to share the layout.
This works differently for segments: You cannot share layouts from segments to other entities. However, you can share layouts from individual entities to segments.
Start sharing layouts 🚀
There are two options for bulk-sharing layouts to your entities: share only or share and set as default. Let’s unpack what these look like.
Pro tip 💡: We recommend only using the "share and set as default” option when setting up new entities. If sharing a layout to existing entities, rather use the "share only" option, as changing an existing entity's default layout can have a detrimental effect on existing KPI scorecards and dashboards.
To get started, click on the more options (...) menu in Layouts and select “Share with other entities”. This will open a dialogue box where you’ll be prompted to select the relevant entities to which you want to share this layout. You can select all entities or select specific entities.
Note 📝: Shared layouts might not align perfectly across all your entities. For example, formulae referencing specific accounts will not share to other entities, mismatching account names can throw off the system's ability to align layouts across entities, and complex groups and sub-categories can cause incorrect categorization of accounts. Put simply: keep it simple to avoid errors.
The system will run a content check to avoid potential errors before sharing the layout.
Once you’ve shared your layout, you will see an icon at the top of the screen showing where the layout originates.
Pro tip 💡: If you’d like to set a shared layout as your default layout, choose the option to “Share & set as default layout” in setup. If you want to deselect this as a default after sharing, click on the star next to the layout name.
Closing thoughts 💭
While we all know that setting up your layouts and COA is an essential first step in building reports, no one wants to spend all their time on this. That’s why the ability to bulk-share layouts across your entities is such a win. Now you can create and share layouts in no time so you can focus your attention on what really matters – customizing reports to best serve your clients, stakeholders, or organization.