Executive summaries and result tabs

Summary#

A full report from a data tool can run to twenty sections. Rather than make you scroll through all of them to find the one number you came for, Metric Vault sorts the sections into categories a moment after the result renders, puts a short summary first, and hides the rest behind a row of labelled tabs. This page explains how that grouping is decided, what each tab means in practice, and how to read a report quickly without missing anything.

Purpose#

Two readers open the same report for different reasons. One wants a verdict in ten seconds. The other wants the evidence, row by row, because they are about to act on it. A single long page serves the second reader and defeats the first.

The summary-first layout serves both. The verdict and the headline numbers are at the top where a skim finds them, and everything else is one click away rather than one thousand pixels away. Nothing is removed and nothing is summarized away: the tabs are a filing system, not an abridgement.

There is a second, quieter benefit. Because sections are labelled by what they are for rather than by what the tool calls them, the same tab names appear across every tool. Once you know that Issues means problems and Data means tables, you know it on all seventy tools.

Overview#

Reading a result covers the whole anatomy of a result screen: the source badge, the KPI tiles, the empty states. This article covers one part of it in depth, the tab bar and the summary that sits above it.

A finished, tabbed result reads like this:

1. The summary. Always the first tab, always selected when the result appears. It holds the headline verdict, the KPI tiles and the chart that matters most.
2. The tab bar. A row of pills, one per category present in this result.
3. The actions, right after the tabs. View Full Report first, then Get recommendations, each separated by a thin divider — so the whole row reads tabs · View Full Report · Get recommendations.
4. The selected pane. Whatever the active tab holds.

How it works#

When tabs appear, and when they do not#

Roughly a tenth of a second after a result finishes rendering, the app reads the section headings and sorts them. Tabs are drawn only when there is genuinely something to sort:

This is why one tool shows tabs and another does not. It reflects the shape of the report, not a setting.

How each section is filed#

Sections are sorted by what their heading says they contain. A heading mentioning issues, problems, errors, warnings, risks, or something broken or missing is filed under Issues; a heading mentioning trends, distributions, timelines or breakdowns goes to Graphs, as does any section that draws a chart; and so on.

The tabs always appear in the same order, no matter which tool produced the report:

A section whose heading does not match any category keeps its own heading as its tab label. Long labels are shortened to 34 characters so the bar stays on one line.

Two ways the tabs are built#

Reports are drawn by two families of renderer, and the tab system handles each differently so that neither breaks.

• Reports built as a stack of titled sections are physically regrouped into panes, with the first group always becoming Summary. Switching tabs swaps the pane.
• Reports built as a grid of cards are left where they are and simply shown or hidden, because moving cards would break the grid layout.

You do not need to know which you are looking at. Both behave identically when you export or share. Exports follow the view you are on: on a tab, the export buttons export that tab's content; in the View Full Report view, they export the whole report. Share public link always captures the whole report with every tab expanded, whatever is on screen. See Exporting results and Sharing a result by link.

The actions in the tab bar#

View Full Report sits immediately after the last tab and acts like one. It reveals every section of the report in place, in order, lights up like a selected tab, and at the same time opens a clean, standalone copy of the whole report in a new browser tab. With the full report open, the export buttons above the result cover every section. Click any tab to go back to a single category.

The new tab is built the same way as a public share link, so you need to be signed in and there must be a finished result to capture; see Sharing a result by link.

Get recommendations, right after it, is a shortcut to the action-plan panel that also sits below the result. It reads the finding it can see and writes a prioritized plan. It is a paid feature with its own allowance; see Get Recommendations.

The clamp, for long unstructured results#

When a result is long but has no sections to file, it is clamped to a readable height with a fade at the bottom, and a bar appears at the end offering two choices:

• Expand here opens the rest of the report in place.
• View Full Report here opens a clean, standalone copy of the whole report in a new tab — interactive controls stripped, charts converted to images. It is the same mechanism as a public share link, so the page can be sent to somebody. You need to be signed in, and there must be a finished result to capture.

Reading a report in under a minute#

1. Read the source badge. Know whether you are looking at measured data, a live AI measurement, or an AI reading of measured data. See Reading a result.
2. Read the Summary tab only. The verdict and the KPI tiles answer most questions on their own.
3. If something looks wrong, open Issues. It is ordered by severity, so the first item is the one that matters.
4. If something looks like it moved, open Graphs. A single number cannot tell you about direction; a trend can. See Charts and visualizations.
5. When you are ready to act, open Recommendations or press Get recommendations.
6. Open Data last, when you need to defend a number or export the rows.

That order is deliberate: verdict, then problem, then trend, then action, then evidence. Starting at Data is the slowest way to read any report.

Examples#

Screenshots#

Tips#

• The tab bar is the fastest table of contents you will get. Read it before reading the report.
• If you are looking for a table to export, it is almost always in Data — open that tab and the export buttons will export exactly those rows.
• Tabs never hide anything from a share link, so you do not need to click through them before sharing. Exports are different: they follow the view you are on, so open View Full Report first when you want everything in one file.
• Use View Full Report when you want the whole thing on one page, for example to print it, read it end to end, or export all of it.

Limitations#

• Tabs are chosen automatically from section headings; you cannot rename, reorder or pin them.
• The category is decided by the heading and by whether the section draws a chart, so an unusually worded heading may end up under its own name rather than in a category.
• View Full Report is the only way to see the whole report as one page; the tabs themselves cannot be switched off permanently.
• Tab labels are trimmed to 34 characters.

Troubleshooting#