User-Defined Column Grouping in Views (Grids)

User-Defined Column Grouping - Overview

THE IDEA

Allow users to organize AgGrid columns into custom groups that can be collapsed/expanded and managed as units. Unlike ProPricer's fixed entity-based groups (all Resource properties together), BOE Pro makes groups user-defined.

WHY USER-DEFINED?

The Problem: When Material View integrates with SAP/Costpoint, we import 40+ external fields. We don't know which SAP tables they come from or how they relate—that varies by customer. A flat list of 50+ columns is overwhelming.

The Solution: Let users create their own logical groups:

SAP Pricing (user-created)

• Moving Average Price

• Standard Price

• Price Control

Vendor Info (user-created)

• Preferred Vendor

• Vendor Material Number

Users collapse groups they don't need, expand what's relevant, and organize data to match their workflow—not limited by technical entity boundaries.

SCOPE SYSTEM

• User Scope: Personal group preferences (highest priority)

• System Scope: Admin-defined defaults for new users (fallback)

• Application Default: No groups, flat list (final fallback)

Admins provide organizational standards; users customize without affecting others.

INTEGRATION

We need to define how it works with other planned features:

• Terminology: Groups are even next level of terminology, not only renaming columns, but introducing logical grouping with custom names.

• User Settings: Groups are saved with view preferences and persisted between user sessions. This feature also uses the same fallback pattern (user-level settings, then system-level defaults)

• Material View: Custom User Views

• Applies to any AgGrid view (Material View, Estimates View, BOE List View, etc.)

BENEFITS

Users: Less cognitive load, cleaner views, personal workflows
Admins: Organizational standards, adapts to any customer integration
Developers: Reusable pattern across all views