SAS VA 8.4 linking section

[Frank_Boekamp]

Hi there, 

When I open a section by clicking on a link in VA 8.3 I used to get an button-like arrow in the top left which took me back to the section that contained the link. In SAS VA 8.4 that button-like arrow seems to bee missing or am I missing something?

Cheers,

Frank

[Sam_SAS]

Hi Frank,

When you follow a link, you should see a breadcrumb trail in the report title area:

In this example, clicking "Report 2" will take you back to the page where you clicked the link.

Sam

[Frank_Boekamp]

Hi Sam,

I don't see any breadcrumb trails in my report.

I'm not opening a new report, I'm linking sections in the same report from text objects.

Best Regards,

Frank

[Sam_SAS]

Hi Frank,

I didn't realize we were talking about linking from a Text object. I see what you mean now.

I will ask the dev team about this. When the new breadcrumb feature was created, I believe the main focus was on linking interactions from tables and graphs.

Sam

[Sam_SAS]

I am told that this is working as designed.

For page links that don't perform a filtering action (like those originating in a Text object,) the intended workflow is for the user to just click the page tab to go back.

I checked, and we do provide a breadcrumb for *report* links from a Text object.

I will forward this thread to our UI designer for his awareness.

Thanks,

Sam

[Riley · Accepted solution]

The full context is that in the new design we remove the page navigation tabs when a page link with filters is taken. The goal was to avoid the confusion that arises when you have a filter link from Page 1 to Page 2, but the viewer user can still navigate to any page they want and even take additional links which is a state the breadcrumb can't really show and creates odd questions about what should happen if the same page is linked into twice.

UX was concerned that removing the page navigation tabs after clicking a simple link that didn't have filters was overly restrictive to common cases like an author building a table of contents on the first page. The simplest fix to avoid this was to omit these simple links from being part of the breadcrumb system altogether which also helps in cases where the flow of the report may be non-linear.

Sounds like the missing piece is that while it isn't necessary to lock a viewer into using the breadcrumb we should look at ways to still provide a navigational "go back" button that can function regardless of whether the breadcrumb is in use or whether the tabs are shown. Functionally I don't see any issues, so it mostly comes down to finding a stable position for it in the UI that doesn't conflict with the undo/redo buttons or the new edit/view toggle. I'll pass it along to the rest of the team and see where it goes.