Templates and the chart library

Reuse a chart across reports from the library, start a report from a template and point it at your data, and save your own reports as templates.

Halo has two ways to avoid building the same thing twice. The chart library reuses one chart in many reports, staying in step. Templates copy a whole report as a starting point, which you then point at your own data.

The chart library

The Charts page holds saved charts, to reuse in reports. A chart in a report is one of two kinds:

Placing a chart from the library takes edit on it, or being able to open its dataset. See What a report can read.

Charts start in the report, which keeps the library free of one-offs. When one is worth reusing, select it and choose Save to library in the inspector.

A chart placed from the library can still have its own Title here in a report, shown instead of the chart's title. Its interactions, such as cross-filtering, are set on the report's element. See Filters and parameters.

Start from a template

1. On Reports, choose From a template. The Templates gallery lists Halo's templates, those in your Marketplace data, and your organization's, with search, source and category filters. Each card says how many pages it has and what data it needs.

2. Choose Use template.

3. Give the report a Title and a Workspace.

4. For each dataset the template needs, pick Your dataset, then a field for each field it asks for. Halo fills in the matches it can find, and you can change any of them.

5. Choose Create report. Halo makes it as a job, and offers Open the report when it's ready.

The new report is a draft of its own, and the template stays as it is. If you have no dataset yet, the dialog says so. Start with Build a dataset.

Save your own

1. In the builder, choose Draft, then Save as a template…. You need edit access to the report and the permission to create content.

2. Give it a Name and a Description, which is what it's for, shown in the gallery.

3. Save it. It joins the gallery for everyone in your organization.

Three things happen to the template:

• It copies the draft as it is now, so later changes to the report don't reach it.

• Saved charts are copied into it, so it has no ties to your library.

• It holds no rows. Its datasets are placeholders, along with the fields it uses, and people pick their own when they use it.

To remove one, use the delete button on its card, then Delete template. It leaves the gallery for everyone, and reports already made from it keep their pages and charts.

Move a report between organizations

Templates stay in their organization. To take a report elsewhere, use a file:

1. In the builder, choose Draft, then Export as file. You get the draft and the saved charts it places, as a .halo-report.json file.

2. In the other organization, choose Import a report on the Reports page and pick the file.

3. Pick where it goes, then map its datasets and fields to that organization's, as with a template.

The file holds the report's design, not your data.

Copy a report in place

To branch a report inside the same organization, choose Duplicate report in the report's menu. That's the quickest way to make a variant of one report, such as one per team.