Overview
Together with searches, the Broadstripes layout feature is your key to viewing the records you want in a format that matches your process. While a search filters the set of contacts displayed by the criteria you choose, a layout determines which exact information to display about those contacts, and in what order.
In short, layouts let you completely customize the contents of the search results panel, i.e. which data fields you see. You can choose just the columns of data you want, and leave out the ones that might get in the way.
What’s more, you can create different layouts for different teams or tasks. By creating good layouts, you can view and record information in the most effective way possible. Once you’ve created a layout, you can apply it to any search results, any time. You can even share layouts with other users so whole organizing teams can work from the same set of crucial information.
Create a layout
- To build a new layout, start on the search results panel. (Learn about running a search in the Search by name article.)
- In the upper-right area above your search results, click the drop-down menu next to the word Layout as shown below. Our drop-down menu is labeled “unsaved,” but yours may look slightly different depending on whether you are currently using a saved layout or not.
- Click Build new layout…
- A layout-building tool will open.
- Using the layout builder, click once on any column listed under “Other available columns:” to include it in your layout. Each column you choose will be added to the upper-left portion of the layout builder in the same order you choose it.
- For this example, we are going to create a layout that will help us run a card-checking campaign. We’ll choose some basic information about the workers as well as their employment info:
- Contact (choosing this will display their first and last name in a single column. Checking “show employments” will add their full employment details to that column, too — for this example, we’ll leave that unchecked)
- Department (where they work)
- Classification (their job position, sometimes labeled “Job position”)
- Code (their assessment code, sometimes labeled “assessment”)
- Notes
- Phone and email
Single-click any gray column name on the right to add it to your search results layout.
- For this card-checking layout, we’ll also choose to display information specifically related to workers’ cards from the Card event under the Active events section:
- Signed
- On file
- Email sent
- Clicking the plus sign next to the event name Card will add all three of the event steps (Signed, On file, and Email sent) to the layout at once (or you can single-click on each step name to add them one at a time).
If your project has active events, they will be shown at the bottom of the layout builder.
Adding events and event steps to your layout
In this example, all the data related to signed cards is part of a custom event called “Card” that we set up specifically for this project. Depending on the events you have set up, the column choices might look a little different in your project.
However, in all projects, your active events and event steps will always be shown in the lower section of the layout builder.
Note that creating events and event steps is usually handled by a project administrator, but you can read about when and how to use events in the Create an event article.
- Once you’ve added all the columns you need to your layout, you can make some adjustments if needed:
- drag and drop column names to change their position in the search results matrix (the column name at the top of the layout builder will be the first column on the left when your search results are displayed, while column name at the bottom will display as the furthest to the right).
- delete unwanted columns by hovering over the column name and then clicking the minus sign icon that appears.
Delete a column by clicking the minus sign next the the column’s name.
- Once you have your layout configured the way you want it, give it a name, and click to Save as new layout. (If you just want to apply the layout once, and don’t want to save it, click Apply layout.)
- Clicking either button will return you to your search results, re-displaying the records according to your new custom layout.
Modify a layout
- If you want to make changes to a saved layout, for instance, add a column to the layout, click the Layout drop-down menu again.
- Choose to Modify layout…
- The layout builder will open. Using the builder, make the desired changes to the layout, using the same steps you used when you first created the layout. For instance, to add a column to your layout, click once on any column listed under “Other available columns:”
- Once your layout is modified, you can either choose apply the new layout just once, or save and run it.
- Click Apply without saving to apply the layout to your current search results. This will re-display the results, but won’t permanently save any of the changes you’ve made to the layout.
- Click Save changes to overwrite the saved layout with the modifications you’ve just made.
Use your saved layout again with new searches
- To apply a saved layout to another set of search results, start by running the search.
- Next, click the Layout drop-down menu.
- Your saved layouts will appear in the lower half of the drop-down menu under the words YOUR PERSONAL LAYOUTS.
- Hovering over the name of any saved layout will open a pop-up box. From this pop-up box you can:
- see details about the layout, including which specific columns are included in the layout.
- click to share with one other user , edit or delete the saved layout.
- click Make default to apply this layout to all of your search results automatically each time you run a search.
- click Share to convert the layout to a shared layout that all other users will see. Sharing the layout will make it available to them in their own Layout drop-down menu.
- If you want to apply a saved layout to your search results, click on the name of the saved layout. This applies it and instantly displays your search results using the new layout.