Working with Views  

Data Types Supported by Views

Views such as Layer, Grid, Timeline, Compare, and 3D include one or more configurable axes and support combinations of categories, list or numeric attributes, and calculated attributes*. Text attributes cannot be plotted on these views. The Timeline view also supports date attributes.

Wall and List views do not use axes and instead offer flexible layout options. All view types provide controls for adjusting item size, display, and layout.

Column and Donut charts are specialised views designed to summarise data and use a different set of configuration options.

Calculated attributes are automatically generated summaries for each item, including item count, number of relationships, number of tags, number of comments, and like/dislike counts.

The Item Tray

For each view, SharpCloud evaluates your data and displays either all items or a relevant subset. The view filter is applied first to determine which items meet the criteria. Items must then have valid values for all attributes used on the axes to be displayed. Any items missing required values will not appear in the main view and are instead shown in the Item Tray at the bottom of the screen.

Item Tray Visibility

The Item Tray may not be visible by default if it has been hidden. You can toggle its visibility using the Hide Bottom Tray option in View Options.

Items in the tray can be dragged into the view, automatically updating their attribute values based on their new position.

Hide Views

The Hide/Show View feature allows story owners and administrators to control which views are visible to other users, helping simplify navigation without deleting views.

Hidden views are not visible to users with View or Edit permissions. By default, they are also hidden from Admin users (including the story owner), but admins can reveal them using the Show/Hide toggle in the View panel.

Hiding a view does not fully restrict access. If a user navigates directly to a hidden view via a link, it will still be displayed, even though it does not appear in the view strip.

How to Hide or Show Views

1. Open the View strip on the left in Create Mode

2. Click the Eye icon to hide or show specific views

Note: Hidden views are, by default, not visible to collaborators or read-only users.

3. Click the Eye icon at the top of the screen.

• When the icon shows a slash, hidden views are concealed

• When the icon is unslashed, hidden views are visible to you

• By default, all views are set to visible

4. Click the Eye icon next to any view to hide or show it

5. Once complete, click the Eye icon at the top of the View strip to apply your changes

The updated view list reflects what other users will see when accessing your story.

Note: Selecting the three dots next to View allows you to control which views are visible to Collaborators and Read-only users in the view strip.

Grid View Support for Text Attributes

The Grid view now supports text attributes on its axes, aligning with the capabilities already available in the Timeline view.

Use Case: Text Attributes on Axes

Using text attributes on axes removes the need to predefine list attributes for scenarios such as displaying project owners.

Previously, a list of all possible owners had to be created in advance. This could result in unused labels appearing on the axis, requiring manual filtering and potentially hiding valid data as assignments changed.

By using a text attribute, only values that actually exist in the data are displayed on the axis. SharpCloud also suggests existing entries as you type, helping maintain consistency.

If needed, both approaches can be combined by keeping a list attribute and creating a text-based calculated value that references it, allowing flexibility in how the data is used.

Specify Custom Colour for an Item

Items can now be assigned a custom colour, which can be used as either the background or border colour across views.

Previously, item colours were determined by category or attribute values. The Item Colour property allows individual items to be visually distinguished, which is particularly useful for highlighting key items across multiple views.

Assigning an Item Colour

• SharpCloud automatically assigns each item a unique colour by default

• This colour remains unless manually changed

• To customise, use the Item Colour field within the Item Appearance tab in the item edit panel

Displaying Item Colour

In SharpCloud views, the Item Colour property can be applied as either the background colour or border colour of items, allowing you to visually distinguish and highlight them across views.

Example 1 – Item Colour used as background colour in grid view.

Example:

In this example, category colours are used as the background across two views, while a specific item is highlighted using a contrasting colour applied via the Item Colour (border). This makes the item easy to identify without affecting the overall colour scheme.

In addition to custom images and data-driven colours (e.g., by attribute or category), item-specific colours provide another way to enhance clarity and improve understanding within your story.

Fit and Clip Background Images

Background images can be aligned to the chart area in Grid, Timeline, Compare, and Layer views using the Fit option. This ensures the image fits neatly within the view layout.

When Clip is enabled (alongside Fit), the background image dynamically adjusts to filtering, removing sections of the image as rows or columns are filtered out.

Creating and Using Clip-able Background Images

SharpCloud’s built-in Background Image Creator enables you to create clip-able background images directly within your story, removing the need for external tools such as PowerPoint.

As your story evolves—through the addition of new categories or attribute values—you can quickly update background images to ensure they remain aligned with your data.

This feature is particularly useful for creating structured visuals such as Risk PIDs, commonly used in Grid views. It is also supported in Layer, Compare, and Timeline views.

Worked Example

1. Begin by setting up the view where the clip-able background will be applied. Ensure that the number of labels (rows and columns) for each attribute is clearly defined and unlikely to change frequently.

The grid view below shows the Probability by Impact giving us a 5 by 5 grid.

2. In View Options, enable Fit to align the background image to the plot area (excluding axis labels), then enable Clip to make the image respond dynamically to axis filtering.

3. Click the adjacent “Create Image” link to open the Create Background Clip Image screen.

The grid will automatically match the number of rows and columns in your view, with a colour picker available to customise each cell.

Note: If label colours are already defined (e.g., RAG statuses), these will be blended automatically to provide a starting point for your colour scheme.

4. By default, red is selected in the colour picker, so clicking any cell will apply that colour. You can change the active colour at any time to create a varied colour scheme.

The Pick Colour option allows you to select an existing colour from the grid and reuse it, making it easy to apply consistent colours across multiple cells without reselecting them.

5. Once your grid colours are defined, click Create Image to generate and apply the clip-able background. The image is saved to your library for reuse in other views or stories.

You can rename the image before creating it to make it easier to locate later.

In practice, the background image helps highlight different areas of the view, providing a clear visual indicator of importance or focus.

6. A key benefit of clip-able images is their ability to respond dynamically to filtering on either axis. For example, filtering out the “Low” label on the X-axis removes the corresponding column, and the background image is clipped accordingly.

The remaining portion of the image stays aligned with the visible rows and columns, maintaining accurate positioning within the view.

A further left-click on the “Critical” label (top row) filters the view to display only those items and clips the background image to show just the corresponding top section.

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8. Relationship options

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Relationship Options

Relationship settings in View Options are consistent across most views, except for Donut and Column charts, which do not display relationships.

• Show Relationships – Controls whether relationships are visible by default. Users can toggle visibility using the relationship button on the toolbar

• Create/Edit Relationships – Determines whether users can create or modify relationships within the view

• Relationship Animation – Displays directional movement (beads) along relationship lines where direction is defined

• Relationship Style – Sets relationships as either straight (direct) or curved lines

• Behaviour on Click – Defines interaction when selecting an item:

  • Open Item – Opens the item on double-click

  • Highlight Related Items – Highlights all relationships connected to the selected item

• Relationship Type – Controls which relationships are highlighted when an item is selected:

  • Directly Related Only – Shows only directly connected items

  • Up/Down Only – Displays hierarchical relationships across categories, excluding same-category links

  • One and Two Levels Removed – Shows items one or two steps away from the selected item

• Colour By – Applies colour to relationship lines based on a selected relationship attribute

• Thickness – Adjusts line thickness based on a selected relationship attribute

• Show – Determines which values or labels are displayed on relationships

• Relationship Total By – Defines how relationship totals are calculated in contextual and radial views

 

Interactive Filters

Interactive filters can be displayed at the bottom of any view to allow the view to be filtered easily and interactively based on a choice of categories, attributes, owners and tags.

You can set these interactive filters up using the view options.

Using the drop-down menu, you can select attributes grouped by their type for filtering and display.

Note: Attributes will only appear in the drop-down if they have defined labels, or in the case of text attributes, if they contain values.

Note: Tag groups are configured in Story Setup and are covered in more detail in the Working with Tags section.

Using Interactive Filters

Interactive filters allow you to refine the data displayed in a view. For example, a filter bar may include categories, owners, tags, and attributes such as Status and Technology Segment, enabling dynamic filtering of items.

Each label in an interactive filter can be selected to update the view, displaying only items that match the chosen value.

If Background Colour By or Border Colour By is applied using the same attribute as the filter, the filter will visually reflect those colour settings.

When using interactive filters:

• Click a label or tag to select or deselect it

• Right-click a label or tag to select only that option

Rotatable Label Text

You can control the angle of label text displayed outside item boxes using the Label Angle option in the Item Appearance tab within View Options.

In Grid, Layer, and Timeline views, this can be combined with the Show Text Outside setting for improved readability and layout control.

Example:

When Show Text Outside is set to Always (or Automatically based on size), label text is displayed outside the item box at a default angle of 27 degrees.

In some cases, this can result in labels overlapping or appearing beneath item boxes, reducing readability.

By changing the default angle to 55 degrees the level of underlap is reduced significantly.

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Whilst the varying of the text angle won't in all cases eliminate overlap between items and their labels, it provides further control for you and allows you to choose how best to layout the view. 

Enlarge Items

To increase item size beyond the default limit of 2, continue clicking the “+” button at the top of the size slider to incrementally enlarge the items.

Other Enhancements

• Click events can be configured to open in a new browser tab

The ‘Open click event in new tab’ checkbox allows you to choose whether the click event opens the target document (eg. Story, view, item, website) in the current tab or in a new tab.

• The Edit Properties > Attributes panel remembers the most recently selected setting during your session (e.g., Show active and filtered)

• Calculated value labels can be reordered using up and down arrow controls

• Relationships can be pasted directly into the Edit Properties > Relationships screen

• Dragging and dropping an item onto a view automatically sets focus to that item

• Navigation buttons on SharpCloud mobile are now positioned at the bottom of the screen

• New views created using + Add View use default settings rather than inheriting from the current view

 

View Chooser Context Menu

The View strip now includes a right-click context menu, allowing you to quickly access and perform common view-related actions.