How to include a Table of Contents in Genovo report types that don’t have it as standard

Nigel Ogram

Snappy title for this month’s blog, but I couldn’t think of any other way of writing it…

You may be aware of the Genovo Summary of Report Sections Matrix. Its yet another example of our ‘does what it says on the tin’ naming conventions. As you’ve probably guessed, this matrix shows all 32 Genovo report sections and includes a grid to show the report types they are used in.

As you can see, the Table of Contents (ToC) is only used in Suitability Report and Review Report 2.0 report types. The rationale for this is that the three other report types are intended to be short and don’t really need a ToC.

However, a few of our users have asked us how to include a ToC in other report types, so we’ve recently built the ability to do it.

Genovo report tags

A quick lesson on report tags first… Report items such as logos, headshots, tables, lists, contents of free-text boxes etc are all generated using ‘report tags’. For example, on the report title page, there’s a report tag called {logo} and (as you’ve probably guessed), when a report is generated, Genovo replaces the tag with your company logo, assuming you’ve uploaded one.

You can re-use report tags wherever you want in Genovo, so if for example, you wanted to include the name of the person that created the report as well as the name of the adviser on your report front page, you would include the {ReportCreatedBy} tag in your Report Title Page snippet.

As well as a Genovo matrix that lists all of the Genovo report tags, there’s also a great Knowledge Base article on how to use Report Content Manager to create customised versions of Genovo snippets, or even your own custom snippets. If you’d rather watch a video, there’s also a really informative nine-minute video tutorial which tells you everything you need to know.

Anyway, above is an example of a Genovo report tag – this one lists all the objectives entered on the Client Objectives step of the Introduction section:

The Table of Contents report tag

If you’ve ever tried to replicate this tag in the three report types that don’t have it, you’ll have found that it doesn’t work – only Suitability Report and Review Report 2.0 were configured to use it.

However, we’ve now reconfigured Top up / Bed & ISA Report, Fund Switch Report, and Continued Suitability Report to generate a ToC if the ||TOC|| report tag is included in any of the snippets.

Great – so how do I do it?

There are two methods – ‘quick & easy’ or ‘properly’.

Note that the ‘properly’ method requires the use of Report Section Manager, which is only included as standard for Company Plan Midi and above. If your Genovo account is a Solo, Company Starter or Company Mini, you have a couple of choices. You can either subscribe to Report Section Manager as a bolt-on extra, or you can request that we create the custom section for you for a modest fee.

Quick & easy

Let’s do the quick & easy first, as we expect this is how most people will do it. This method ‘piggy-backs’ the table of contents onto the Report Title Page by adding a custom snippet to the Title Page snippet. Here’s how:

1. 1) Using Report Content Manager, locate the Report Title Page section for the report type you want to add a ToC to.



2. 2) Create a custom snippet, by clicking the Add custom snippet button.



3. 3) In the text box, do the following:
1. a. Add a page break, using the Insert Page Break button



1. b. Then, below the page break, add the header text (ensuring you use the ‘Heading 1’ format), followed by the ||TOC|| report tag. You’ll also need another page break after the report tag to force the Introduction section onto a separate page. It should end up looking look something like this:



4. c. Click Save, and that’s it – you’ll now get a table of content in all reports of that report type.
5. d. The alternative to steps a. and b. above is to click on the Source icon </> and paste the following HTML into the text box

Properly

The disadvantage of the ‘quick & easy’ method above is that it doesn’t create a dedicated Table of Contents section in the report, which means that it doesn’t appear in the Report Builder as a section (which in turn means that there’s no ability to exclude it from a report if you don’t want it). So – if you want the Table of Contents to behave exactly as it does in Suitability Report and Review, this is what you need to do:

1. 1) Using Report Section Manager, create a custom section called Table of Contents and make it available to one or more of the report types you want it to appear in. Don’t add it to Suitability Report or Review Report 2.0, as you’ll duplicate the existing ToC. Make sure you select ‘Automatically included in report’. This Knowledge Base article explains everything you need to know about creating custom sections, or you can watch this video tutorial.



2. 2) Next, use Report Content Manager to edit the ‘Title & Content’ snippet. You’ll only need the header text and the ||TOC|| report tag (you don’t need the page breaks)

 

3. 3) Custom sections are always added at the bottom of the list of sections – clearly the wrong place for a table of contents! If your Genovo plan is a Company Maxi, we’ll move the new section for you at no cost, but for other plans we reserve the right to make a modest charge.

The Genovo Knowledge Base

There are Knowledge Base articles to explain how the various content customisation features of Genovo work:

1. What is the Report Content Manager?
2. Video tutorial – How to customise the boilerplate content of your reports and templates using the Report Content Manager
3. What is the Report Section Manager?
4. Video tutorial – An overview of the Report Section Manager

Nigel’s knowledge

In addition to the Summary of Report Sections Matrix and the Report tags matrix mentioned above, Genovo has several other matrices which can be really useful to help your understanding of various elements of Genovo functionality:

• Report Advice Scenario Matrix – provides a view of what report sections you need to add into the Report Builder for a range of common planning scenarios.
• Pension Decumulation Advice Scenario Matrix – provides a summary of the report type, sections and recommended action required for a selection of commonplace pension decumulation scenarios.
• Summary of Wizard Section Steps Matrix – provides a summary of the steps you will find in each wizard section for each Report Type.
• Report Advice Scenario Matrix – provides a summary of all the recommended actions that are available for selection in the Recommended Action step of the various review sections and what they are typically used for.

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; or

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.

 

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