Hi Doug,
I finally got around to having another look at this, and your tip was spot-on! My notes and sample text-mode grouping are below:
Instructions:
Use text-mode to create a standard set of groupings. The key items to add which are different, are the 'orientation' lines (H for Horizontal and V for Vertical). Once it is working for you as a standard grouping, change the report to a matrix grouping. Don't change the grouping fields, but you can still go in and adjust the other Matrix Settings. The only issue seems to be that when the report loads, the Matrix tab doesn’t show by default, even it is set in the settings.
Sample text-mode grouping:
textmode=true
group.0.namekey=view.relatedcolumn
group.0.namekeyargkey.0=assignedTo
group.0.namekeyargkey.1=name
group.0.linkedname=assignedTo
group.0.valuefield=assignedTo:name
group.0.valueformat=string
group.0.orientation=H
group.1.namekeyargkey.0=task
group.1.namekeyargkey.1=ProductTypeRep
group.1.namekey=view.relatedcolumn
group.1.valuefield=task:ProductTypeRep
group.1.linkedname=task
group.1.valueformat=customDataLabelsAsString
group.1.orientation=V
group.2.valuefield=task:TaskTypeRep
group.2.linkedname=task
group.2.valueformat=customDataLabelsAsString
group.2.namekeyargkey.0=task
group.2.namekeyargkey.1=TaskTypeRep
group.2.namekey=view.relatedcolumn
group.2.orientation=V