Custom Report Sections & Templating

ClearSpan builds each report from a list of sections — a section plan. You don't have to accept the default order or the default set of checks: you can reorder sections, rename their headings, and switch optional ones on or off, all without editing the calculation itself.

Section plans#

Every calculation type advertises a fixed menu of built-in sections (for a wood beam: Member Summary, Loading Summary, Load Case Table, Bending Check, Deflection Check). A section plan is just those sections, each with three settings:

• Enabled — whether the section renders at all.
• Order — sections render top to bottom in the plan's order.
• Title override — a custom heading in place of the default label.

By default, the plan is every section for that calc type, in registry order, all enabled. Some optional checks (for example certain shear or bearing checks) ship disabled by default so you opt into them rather than having them forced on.

Where overrides come from#

When ClearSpan renders a report it resolves the section plan from the most specific source available, first match wins:

Each level either fully wins or fully defers — there is no partial merge, so the plan you see is always the complete, predictable list.

Edit a calc's report sections#

Reviewers and firm staff can tailor a single calculation's report:

1. Open the calculation's report template editor.
2. Toggle sections on or off, drag to reorder, and set a title override where you want a custom heading.
3. Save. This stores a per-calc override that takes precedence over your firm template and the global default.
4. Regenerate the report so the saved PDF picks up the new plan (see Generate & Download Reports).

To revert a calc back to your firm or global plan, clear its override; the report falls back to the next level automatically.

Firm-wide templates#

A firm admin can set a default plan per calculation type for the whole firm — for example, always include a deflection check and rename "Bending Check" to your house heading. Every new calc of that type uses the firm template unless a reviewer adds a per-calc override on top.

Custom PDF attachments#

A section plan can also reference uploaded template PDFs (firm- or globally-scoped boilerplate bound to a calc type). These are spliced into multi-calc deliverables; for combining whole PDFs with your calcs, see Compile Multi-Calc Packages.