Use the Table widget to display multiple objects from a dataset. Depending on how you configure it, users may be able to search, filter, sort, group, open, create, edit, or delete those objects.

When to use it #

The Table widget is the workhorse of most applications. Use it whenever a page is about a list rather than about one object.

Use it for:

• the main list page of a dataset – all accounts, all requests, all incidents;
• a filtered list on a details page, such as the contacts belonging to one account;
• any page where users need to add objects quickly, one row at a time.

Where a page is about a single object, use a Text Grid widget instead.

Add a Table widget #

To add a Table widget:

1. Open the page and enable Layout edit mode.
2. Select Add a widget.
3. Select the Table tile, or drag it onto the page.
4. Work through the five configuration steps.
5. Select Create.
6. Save the page layout.

Configuration is arranged as five steps: Widget, Data Source, Columns, Table Properties, and File Management. Move through them in order the first time. When editing an existing widget you can jump straight to the step you need.

Step 1: Widget #

The first step holds the widget’s identity and its behaviour. Three collapsible sections group the options, each showing a summary of its current settings.

General information #

Widget Title and Description, each with an eye icon controlling whether it is shown to users.

Table properties #

• Sidebar – adds a collapsible panel to the side of the table. When on, a Sidebar Panels block appears where you choose which panels are available: Filters, Columns, and AI Assistant. The Columns panel lets users show and hide columns themselves; the Filters panel gives them a full filter builder. Switching Sidebar on selects Filters and Columns for you if nothing is selected yet, and clearing every panel switches Sidebar off again, since a sidebar with no panels has nothing to show.
• Group Bar – shows a strip above the table reading Drag here to set row groups, where users drag a column heading to group the rows by it.

Data Editing #

Three switches decide what users may do to the objects:

• Add Row – users can create objects;
• Edit Cells – users can change values in place;
• Delete Row – users can delete objects.

Switch on only what the page needs. A reference list that nobody should change is clearer with all three off.

When Add Row is on, Add Row Mode decides how creating works:

• Pinned Row + Manual Submit – an empty row is pinned at the top of the table. The user fills it in and submits it deliberately. This is the safest choice, and the right default.
• Pinned Row + Auto Submit – the same pinned row, but it saves itself as soon as every required value is present. Quick for rapid entry, but easy to trigger by accident.
• Modal Popup – a dialog opens and the user completes it before the row is added. Best when the dataset has many required properties, because a dialog has room for them.

These switches only permit an action. Whether a given user can actually perform it is decided by their permissions on the dataset.

Display Options #

• Column Auto-Size – how column widths are calculated. Fit Contents sizes each column to its widest value, which suits tables with a few columns. Fit Grid spreads the columns across the available width, which suits tables that should fill the page. No Auto Size keeps the widths you set.
• Text Wrap – long values wrap onto several lines instead of being cut off.
• Header Wrap – the same for column headings, useful when headings are longer than their values.
• Tree View – displays the rows as a hierarchy. Use it for a dataset with a parent dataset, where objects genuinely nest.

Step 2: Data Source #

This step decides which objects the table reads.

Leave Use External Connection off to read a dataset stored in Auclio. Switch it on to read from an external connection, then choose it in Connection.

Select the dataset in Dataset. Both fields offer an option to create a new dataset or connection without leaving the dialog – Create new dataset and Create new external connection. Once a dataset is selected, Edit Dataset opens that dataset’s own dialog, so you can add a missing property without abandoning the widget.

A Lock Configuration control guards the step. It appears once the widget has joins or columns to protect. While the configuration is locked, joins and columns cannot be deleted, and the connection, dataset, and Edit Dataset controls are disabled. The button then reads Unlock Configuration; unlock it deliberately when you intend to restructure the widget.

Joins #

A table can pull in columns from a second dataset by joining it. Use a join when users need one flat list combining both – contacts with their account’s country alongside, for instance.

The Joins block appears below the dataset once the connection offers more than one dataset. Select Add Join and complete the join as a sentence: which dataset to join, then which property matches which object. Only Dropdown properties can carry a join, because a Dropdown property is what relates two datasets, and the join can run in either direction – from a Dropdown property on this dataset out to its target, or from a Dropdown property on another dataset back to this one. Finish with Create Join, which is disabled until every part of the sentence is filled in.

Editing or deleting a confirmed join deletes every column that came from the joined dataset, and Auclio warns you before it does. Rebuild those columns afterwards.

Where you instead want a list scoped to one object, do not join. Put a Table widget on a details page and filter it by the page’s parameter.

Step 3: Columns #

This step has two tabs.

Columns #

One entry per column, listed in the order they appear in the table. Drag a row by its number to reorder the columns.

Two buttons sit above the list. Add Column opens an empty column dialog. Auto Map Dataset creates a column for every property of the main dataset and of each joined dataset in one action, which is the fastest way to start; delete the columns you do not want afterwards.

Each column’s dialog holds:

• Column Label – the heading users see. This is independent of the property name, so a property called nameOrTitle can appear as Account.
• Dataset Field – the property the column reads. This is where the column is bound to data. When the widget has joins, a Dataset field appears first, so you can choose whether the column reads the main dataset or a joined one.
• Boolean Field Input Type – for boolean properties, whether the cell shows a Checkbox or a Dropdown.
• Enable create new object – for dropdown properties, lets users create a new object in the target dataset directly from the cell.
• Link – makes the column’s values clickable. Set Type to External Link and enter a URL, or to Page Link and choose a Target Page, then map the destination’s parameters under Link Parameters using Add Parameter and the Name and Value pairs. Linking a column to a details page is what turns a list into a navigable application.

Save with Save Column.

Two limits are worth knowing. A dropdown column offers no Link Configuration section at all, because the API rejects a link on a dropdown column. And once a column with a link has been saved, its link settings are locked – the dialog says Link settings are locked for existing items – so change a column’s link by deleting the column and adding it again.

Column Properties #

Per-column behaviour, shown as a grid with one row per column:

• Column Name – which column the row refers to;
• Default Value – the value a new row starts with. It takes a static value, a page parameter, another property of the row, or a date expression, and the picker offers whichever of those suits the column’s data type. Workflow columns and read-only system properties offer no default;
• Visible – whether the column appears at all. On by default;
• Filtering – whether the column offers a filter. On by default;
• Grouping – whether users can group the rows by this column. On by default;
• Comments – whether each cell in the column offers a comment button, badged with the number of comments on that value. Off by default;
• Editable – whether this specific column can be edited, within a table that allows editing. On by default;
• Min Width and Max Width – bounds in pixels;
• Control – an optional per-row condition on editing, opened in its own dialog.

The headings of Visible, Filtering, Grouping, Comments, and Editable each carry a checkbox that turns that property on or off for every column at once. Use it to clear everything and then set the few columns you want.

Control opens Column Control Settings, where you build condition groups under Enable column when. The conditions are evaluated per row: where the expression is true the cell can be edited, and where it is false the cell is disabled. Copy from reuses another column’s conditions, Apply to all columns pushes the current ones to every column, and Clear removes them.

Two more things about this grid are worth knowing.

Visible gates the rest. Switch it off and every other control on that row is disabled except Default Value, because a hidden column has no behaviour to configure but can still supply a value to a new row.

Editable is the setting people most often miss. A table with Edit Cells switched on still shows a read-only column if that column’s Editable is cleared – which is exactly how you keep an identifier or a calculated value uneditable while the rest of the row stays editable.

Step 4: Table Properties #

This step sets the state the table opens in, across three tabs:

• Filters – the filters applied when the page loads. Use this to scope a table to the objects that matter, such as open requests only. Conditions are built in groups, and the groups are combined with each other.
• Sorting – the initial sort order. Select Add Sort, choose a column, and set it to Ascending or Descending. Add several to sort by more than one column.
• Grouping – the columns the rows are grouped by from the start. Select Add Group and choose a column for each level; the levels are shown as a chain, and rows are grouped in that order.

Users can change all of these afterwards, unless you have disabled the relevant column properties. What you set here is the starting point, not a restriction.

Users can also save their own arrangement as a preference, which then reopens the table the way they left it. Preferences are per user and do not change what anyone else sees.

Step 5: File Management #

This step controls what users can do with files attached to the objects in the table. It applies only when the dataset allows files.

Decide first where files appear. Under Files Location:

• Side Panel – a panel beside the table showing the selected row’s files;
• Files Column – a column showing each row’s files, which you can drag to any position in the Columns step.

Then switch on what users may do, under Files Settings: Upload, Delete, Download, and Preview. All four stay disabled until at least one location is on, because an action with nowhere to appear does nothing.

When both Upload and Files Column are on, Upload button label and Upload button tooltip appear. They rename the upload control, so it can read something meaningful such as Attach signed contract instead of the default Upload new file.

If the dataset does not allow files, the step says so and offers to open the dataset instead.

See Work with files for detailed instructions on file behaviour and limits.

What users can do in a finished table #

Right-clicking a table offers, depending on configuration and permissions:

• Add new row on an ordinary row, and Submit new row and Cancel on the pinned new row;
• Delete row, or Delete {n} rows when several are selected;
• Bulk edit {n} rows – applies the same value to the selected rows. The entry appears only when between 2 and 10 rows are selected and at least one column can be edited;
• Unselect {n} rows;
• Preferences, whose submenu holds Save, Reset, and Delete for the user’s own saved arrangement;
• the grid’s own copy, copy-with-headers, and export entries.

The column menu, opened from a column heading, adds Clear this column filter and Clear all columns filters whenever filters are active.

Recommendations #

When configuring a Table widget:

• show the columns users need and no more; extra columns make a table harder to read, not more useful;
• set a Column Label in the users’ language rather than accepting the property name;
• link one column to a details page, so the list is a way in rather than a dead end;
• use Fit Grid for a table that fills a page and Fit Contents for a narrow one;
• start with Pinned Row + Manual Submit and only move to auto-submit if users ask;
• apply a default filter so the table opens on the objects that matter;
• disable editing per column for identifiers and calculated values;
• test with a non-administrator account, because permissions decide what the table can actually show.