How to customise the footer of your reports
Nigel Ogram
Last month, I covered some new functionality from our Version 2.3 release last November – the Genovo Plan Charges Library.
This month’s blog is about another new feature included in the v2.3 release – Report Page Footers.
You’re probably aware that you’ve had the ability to create Report Title Page Footers for some time. However, as the name suggests, this only applies to the title page of your reports.
Historically, Genovo reports have always included a hard-coded default footer for all the other pages – your company name on the left and the page number on the right. However, we received enough user requests that we decided to make it customisable.
How you go about customising your report page footers will depend on your Genovo plan type:
- Company Plan Midi or Company Plan Maxi – The feature is included at no extra cost.
- Solo Plan, Company Plan Starter, Company Plan Mini – This feature is only available for purchase as a one-off bolt on. You specify your footer requirements and Genovo will implement it for you, for a modest charge. Please get in touch if you want to know more.
Report Title Page Footer and the new Report Page Footer are both accessed from a new icon on the Customisations dashboard:
The Report footers page is split into two sections – the top section deals with Report Title Page Footer and lower section deals with Report Page Footer.
Adding a single text string for a report page footer is really easy – just type in the text you want, set the alignment, font size and colour, and that’s it! If you use the styles selection from the HTML toolbar, the text will even pick up the font attributes that you’ve set in your Report Theme.
However, multiple elements in a footer can be a bit trickier – for example your company name on the left (and left-aligned) and the page number / total pages on the right (and right-aligned). These more complex footers involve tables (with transparent backgrounds and borders) and are best created using HTML
Fear not though – we appreciate that not many of our users will be conversant with HTML, so we’ve created an excellent Genovo Knowledge Base article.
This explains how Report Page Footers work, but even provides some sample HTML that you can simply copy and paste into the HTML text box (after first making sure you’ve selected Code View in the HTML text box).
And there’s no need to worry if you make a mess of it – there’s a simple Reset button to put everything back to default.
You can even add images to your Report Page Footer – simply copy the image and paste it directly into the HTML text box (you’ll almost certainly have to reduce the size quite considerably). This is also an excellent workaround for having your favicon somewhere different to the default location of the top right corner.
Nigel’s knowledge
Report footers can be configured with simple text and images. However, if you want to get creative, you can also use Genovo Report Tags in your report footers.
Report Tags are placeholders that instruct the Genovo report generator to replace the tag with some dynamic wording, a table, a list, an image, etc
The example footer shown below uses four Report Tags – {CL_AdviserText} {JobTitle} and {CompanyName} on the left (left aligned), and {CurrentPageNumberOfTotal} on the right (right-aligned).
Report Tags aren’t just useful in report page footers – they can be used in customised versions of Genovo snippets and even in your own custom snippets. We’ve built a Summary of Report Tags Matrix where you’ll find details of all 178 Report Tags in Genovo.
Further reading
You’ll find loads more really useful information in:
- Genovo’s series of User Tip blogs
- the extensive Genovo Knowledge Base
- the collection of really useful Genovo matrices
- the ever popular Genovo video tutorials
Of course, if you’re still stuck, or just need a helping hand, you can always submit a support ticket and we’ll get straight back to you.
Finally – make sure you don’t miss any of our hints & tips – subscribe and get email alerts when we update our blog.
Written by Nigel Ogram
Nigel has worked in financial services in one form or another for over 35 years. After a few years as an adviser, he started his paraplanning career in 1997 and quickly found an affinity for building and establishing systems and processes designed to drive efficiencies. While paraplanning, Nigel also developed and marketed an Excel-based factfind / needs analysis system, which opened up a new path working with financial services software. This continued with roles at Synaptic Systems, where in addition to being the in-house subject-matter expert on the core applications, Nigel developed a passion for helping advisers and their teams integrate software effectively and profitably within their businesses. Outside of work, Nigel is a confirmed “petrolhead” with a strong interest in motorsport, which he often combines with his second hobby – photography, which he shares with his two sons.
Share this post
Free suitability report template
Learn how to make your reports more reader-friendly and engaging.
Suitability report best practice guide
Download the interactive guide and follow our 9 steps to better suitability reports.
