Working in the Spreadsheet Interface

Some screens ask you to pick many rows at once: which rows of a file to create, which partners to verify, which categories to archive, which categories belong to a report line. These screens all use the same spreadsheet interface. You move with the arrow keys, select several rows with Shift, tick them with Space, search without losing your place, and filter by column. This article explains every key and mouse action. It covers the four screens below; the same interface is used by the Business Central import and push screens too, which add one extra kind of column.

On a Mac, press Cmd (⌘) wherever this article says Ctrl, and Option (⌥) where it says Alt.

Where you meet it

Nothing is created, verified, archived or saved until you click the button that acts. Cancel leaves the screen without a change; in an import, Back returns to the column mapping. Esc and a click outside the screen do not close it, so a half-made selection is never lost by accident.

Two differences between the screens are worth knowing before you press the button:

• On an import, the button is dead until something is ticked. On the other three it stays live at zero ticks, and clicking it then is meaningful: saving a report line with nothing ticked empties that line, because the save replaces the line's whole set of categories rather than adding to it.
• A ticked row is not a promise. The screen checks what it can, but a row can still be skipped when it is committed: an import reports rows that turned out to exist already or to be invalid, and verification reports rows that need manual review. Read the result message, not just the tick count.

Acting needs a permission: Edit master data for the import, verifying partners and archiving categories, and Manage reports for a report line. See Roles and Permissions.

For what each screen means for your data, see Importing Master Data, Managing Partners and Reports.

Selected and ticked are two different things

1. The search box. It counts the matches, here the first of three, and the arrows step between them.
2. Tick all the matches at once. It is a toggle, and on an import, where every row starts ticked, it usually reads Untick.
3. Matches only is the one switch that hides rows. Without it a search never hides anything.
4. Selected, in blue, with the cursor outline. This is where you are, not what the screen will act on.
5. A row the search did not match: faded, and still exactly where it was.
6. A row that cannot be ticked at all: a grey box, Exists in Status, and the reason in Note.
7. The ticked count, on the button row below the table. It is not the line inside the table's bottom edge, which reads Row 1 of 6 and tells you where the selection is.

The table scrolls sideways when the window is narrow, which is why Note runs off the right edge here.

• Selected rows are highlighted in blue. The selection is where you are, like the cursor in a spreadsheet, and it can cover several rows.
• Ticked rows have a tick in the first column. The tick is what the screen acts on when you click the button.

Most keys work on the selected rows. Space, for example, ticks every selected row. Only the ticks count at the end.

Moving around

A click on a row moves there too.

The import of invoice or cash categories and the report line picker group the rows by account group while they are sorted by code, for example every code starting with 52 under one group row. The other screens show one flat list.

Only a code of three digits or more is grouped. A shorter code, an empty one or one with letters in it sits outside every group, and the code filter cannot hide it: untick every account group and those rows stay on screen.

Selecting several rows

The line inside the table's bottom edge shows where you are and how many rows are selected, for example "Row 3 of 120". The ticked count lives somewhere else: on the button row below the table, next to Cancel.

Ticking and unticking

When ten or more rows change at once, a short message confirms it and offers Undo. Below ten there is no message, though Ctrl+Z still undoes it.

In an import, rows that cannot be created are grey and cannot be ticked. The Status column says what happens to them, for example Exists, and the Note column gives the reason where there is one, for example "duplicate in file".

The note above the table

Each screen says something material in a line above the grid, and it is easy to read past:

• Archiving categories says how many are already archived. Those rows are not in the list at all: this screen archives, it never restores.
• Verifying partners shows at most 1,000 names at a time, and says how many of the total are in front of you. The rest come the next time you open it.
• Importing categories says how many direction cells it could not read. Those categories are created usable for both directions, which you can correct in the file or afterwards.

Searching

Start typing anywhere in the table and the search box takes your keystrokes (Ctrl+F does the same). The matches are highlighted, and the other rows stay where they are, only faded. The search box counts the matches, for example "3 / 12", and small amber marks on the right edge of the table show where the matches are in the whole list. Click a mark to jump to that match.

How a search matches:

• Words match anywhere in the name. Capital letters and accents do not matter, so kozuzemi finds "Közüzemi díjak". With several words, a row has to contain all of them.
• Digits match the start of the code or the tax number: 52 finds 5210, 1234 finds 12345678-2-41.

Nothing else is searched. The other columns - country, address, the existing partner, the report lines a category is on - are not matched, and a word never matches a number or the other way round.

Typing in the table when the search box already has something in it replaces what is there. To add a second word, click into the box first.

Keys in the search box:

From the table, F3 jumps to the next match and Shift+F3 to the previous one.

When there is more than one match, a button next to the search box acts on all of them at once. It toggles: Tick all 12 matches when some are unticked, and Untick all 12 matches when they are all ticked. On an import, where every row starts ticked, it usually reads Untick.

The Matches only switch hides the rows that do not match. It is the only thing that hides rows because of a search; without it, the search never hides a row.

Filtering and sorting by column

Click a column header to sort by it. Click it again to reverse the order. A small ▲ or ▼ marks the sorted column.

Some columns have a filter button in their header. It opens a menu with two sort options at the top and the column's values below, each with the number of rows that have it. Untick a value to hide those rows; (Select all) shows every value again. Click Done to close the menu.

While a filter hides something, its button turns blue and the filter appears as a chip above the table. Click the chip to open the filter again, or its × to clear it. If a filter leaves no rows, the table says so and offers Clear filters.

Which columns have a filter:

• Import: Status. For partners also Country, for invoice and cash categories also the code, by account group.
• Verifying partners: What happens, and Country.
• Archiving categories: Usage, and Direction.
• Report line: Status, and the code, by account group.

The code filter lists the account groups under their account class, so you can hide a whole class with one tick.

Ticks stay when you filter or search

A tick stays until you remove it. A filter or a search changes only what you see, not what is ticked. The line below the table counts the ticked rows, and when some of them are hidden, it says so, for example "42 rows ticked · 5 of them are not visible now and stay ticked". The button that acts takes every ticked row, including the hidden ones.

Ctrl+A and the tick box in the header work on the rows listed now. To tick a group of rows, filter or search for them first, then tick them all at once.

The blue selection is not as durable as the ticks. A row that leaves the view stops being selected, and if every selected row goes, the selection collapses to wherever the cursor is. Only the ticks survive a filter or a search.

Undo and redo

The table remembers the last 200 changes. They are changes on the screen only; nothing is saved before you click the button that acts.

Copying rows

Select rows and press Ctrl+C. The rows are copied as tab-separated text with the column names on the first line, ready to paste into Excel or any other spreadsheet program. The copy holds the table's columns (in an import, without the Note column), so you can take a list with you to check or to send.

Pasting codes or tax numbers to tick rows

If you already have the list of rows you want, as a column of codes or tax numbers in Excel or in an email, copy it, click into the table and press Ctrl+V. The rows it finds are ticked, and the table jumps to the first of them. A message says how many rows matched and names the values that did not match any row (the first four of them). It counts matches rather than new ticks, so pasting the same list twice reports the same number the second time, having changed nothing.

• On the partner screens (partner import, verifying partners) paste tax numbers. The format does not matter: HU12345678, 12345678-2-41 and 12345678 find the same partner.
• On the category screens paste codes. Capital letters do not matter.

The values can be one per cell or line, or separated by commas, semicolons or spaces. Pasting only adds ticks; it never removes one. Undo it with Ctrl+Z like any other change.

Only in an import: the name and the direction

In an import, you can correct a row before it is created:

• F2, or a double click on the name, edits the name. Enter saves it and moves one row down; Tab and clicking away also save, and only Esc discards. A changed name shows restore, which brings back the name from the file. The name you leave is the one that is created. A double click on the code or tax-number cell opens the same editor.
• When you import invoice or cash categories, Alt+↓ (or the small arrow in the Direction cell) opens the direction of the row: Income, Expense or Both. The value from the file is the suggestion. A direction you changed is marked with a blue dot, and the list then offers Back to the value in the file. With several rows selected, the choice applies to all of them. In the open list, the first letter of an option picks it.

The other three screens act on records that already exist, so the name cannot be edited there. Change a partner's or a category's name on its own page instead.

The built-in list of keys

Press ?, or click Shortcuts above the table, to open the list of keys and mouse actions in the app itself. Esc closes it. The line under the table also shows the few keys that fit what you are doing at the moment: moving, searching, editing a name, or working with a selection.