Management Reporter- Columns Not Shading Properly

Sometimes the devil is in the details.  Honestly, it seems like ALWAYS the devil is in the details.  There are quite a few community and blog posts floating around regarding column shading in Management Reporter.  So I thought I would summarize my recent experience with this, as it is/was a little trickier than expected.

First, yes, it is really is as easy as highlight the column in the column format and applying shading.

 

After you do that, yes, it looks funny (meaning the whole column does not appear shaded).  But that is okay, and NORMAL.

 

Now, here is where it gets tricky.  If you have applied ANY formatting to your row (including indenting, highlighting, font change, etc), then the shading will not take effect.  This is identified as a quality report with Microsoft, #352181. And unfortunately, there is no scheduled fix date yet.  So the only workaround is to recreate the row format without the additional formatting.

 

Results when indenting is applied on the row format...note the rows that are indented are not shaded properly.

 

 

Row format with indenting...

 

 

 

So it seems, for now, you have to choose between formatting (and I mean ANY formatting, not just shading) on the row format -vs- shading on the column format based on your needs.

 

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a senior managing consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.