The BillTrack50 Bill Sheet and Regulation Sheet grid is one of the defining features of BillTrack50 and is central to how BillTrack50 works. Here's a quick run through of some of its key functions.
Navigating
You can move around within the grid using the arrow keys on your keyboard.
You can click on a row to expand a bill to review, and but hit the space bar to get it to contract (or click on another row).
You can edit directly in a box by double-clicking.
The grid is responsive to the screen size of your monitor or device. You can also click on the BillTrack50 logo and the navigation will shrink giving your grid even more space.
Curating
The “+” and the “x” icons give you control to curate your bill sheet(s). Selecting “x” will move the bill to the “hidden bills” section. The “+” will allow you to add the bill to a different bill sheet.
Pinning
When scrolling your grid sideways to see more columns you might wish certain columns stayed stuck on the left-hand side, like state and bill number. Well, you can pin any number of columns by simply picking the column you want to pin-up and dropping it on the left edge of the grid (above the + and x column). You’ll know you’ve gotten to the right spot to drop your column because you will get a pin icon.
You can accomplish “pinning” by selecting manage template from the drop-down menu. From the “Bill Sheet Templates” screen, you want to select “edit” next to the template you are using. On the “Edit Bill Sheet Template” screen, you can accomplish “pinning” by clicking the box in the “pinned” column to pin that particular data column. Once you have selected what you want to have pinned, you need to hit save and then return to working on the bill sheet.
After you pin a column a vertical line will appear to show which columns are pinned, much like freezing a column in Excel. When you scroll horizontally pinned columns will stay put. This pinning feature can be especially useful when you are working on a smaller screen, like your phone. For more on how this feature works see this video.
Sorting
You can sort columns by clicking on the column header; a little arrow will appear at the top of a sorted column to remind you that it has been sorted. You can also sort by additional columns by holding down shift and clicking on a second column, and third column, and so on.
The sort order will go from left to right, so you’ll need to order your columns in the order you want them to sort.
Filtering
To access the filter for a specific column hover over the title of the column and then click on the little stack of lines that appear.
The filter will be appropriate to the data type of the column. For text columns, for example, you can choose from options like: contains, not equal, starts with. You can also choose to add more filter terms using AND or OR. Numbers and date filters offer different choices, such as greater than and between. Filters work on your own custom columns too.
The names of filtered rows will be bold to remind you which columns you have filtered on.
You can click “reset filter” to clear the filter when needed.
Grouping
To group on a column drag the column label to the grouping area above the grid.
You can group by multiple columns by dragging more columns to the grouping area. You can adjust the order of the column grouping by rearranging the boxes in the grouping area.
The grouping feature is a great way to slice and dice your bills and get a quick statistical look at what’s going on. Here’s a video on how grouping can help with your end-of-session analysis.