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- Run your PhixFlow installation. If necessary:
- Switch to
Insert excerpt _design_mode _design_mode nopanel true - Expand the Applications branch.
- Expand the Help Viewer.
Developing an application in PhixFlow is a simple process:
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PhixFlow is a flexible platform that can help you to manage your data. This Quick Start Guide introduces the process you can follow for any project:
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To illustrate the process, you will create a simple analysis model and build an application to view and update its data.
PhixFlow has a lot of different options and settings. So that you can work through the process, some things are already set up for you:
- the Excel spreadsheet which you can download from here
- styles, set as system/application defaults, so that PhixFlow knows how to format data tables - which we call grids
- a palette of application components that you can drag onto the layout.
- styles that control the colours and appearance of the screen
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This needs to be shorter with a link to this:
Before you start any PhixFlow project, it is important to take time to understand your data.
- What is your data? Do you need to represent people, places, products, money, time? These are the data entities.
- How does the data connect? These connections are the data relationships.
- How will you represent the data in PhixFlow? This depends on the attributes the data has.
- Is the data "clean" or do you need to tidy it up?
- What data is missing? PhixFlow can combine existing data from different sources and use it to calculate additional data.
- What volume of data do you need to handle? For very large data volumes, you will be able to use modelling strategies to process data efficiently.
- What do you need to do with the data? What is the business problem you want to solve?
For this example, a sales team is using an Excel spreadsheet to manage a list of Business contacts. The data represents business customers (location, turnover) and people (names and addresses). The spreadsheet has the following tabs.
Businesses tab:
Contacts tab:
The data in the two tabs is connected by the the business name.
You want to make it accessible and maintainable by more than one person. You also want to add some simple CRM functions, so that you can add descriptions about the business.
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Remember that you can:
You can represent your data and requirements in an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD); see Wikipedia. It can help you to understand the data entities, their attributes and relationships. An ERD shows you the data architecture. As well as clarifying the data you already have and what you need to calculate, an ERD can help you identify:
Within PhixFLow it is a good idea to be consistent, at a minimum within an application. You can use prefixes to distinguish CRUD or control data from static data. During the planning phase you can set up a naming policy. |
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The first step is to create a PhixFlow application. Everything you create will belong to this application.
- In the repository, right-click on Application and select
.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the application. Enter the name:
tbc
Unique-name
- Click
.Insert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - When prompted to load the application, say yes.
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Creation might create a menu
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Scroll down the properties tab. If you scroll down to the Grid section, you can see that there is a Grid Header Style. This means that whenever PhixFlow displays data in a grid (table), the table header will always have the same colour, font size and style. You can see there are lots of options where you can set data format and style defaults for the application. If none are set here, then PhixFlow uses defaults that are set for the system. This means that, all your applications have a consistent base line for the data and its styles, or you can apply defaults per-application, if you want them to look different. |
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To load the data.
- In your application, create model and set Basic Settings > Name enter:
Businesses
- To open the model in the workspace, click the toolbar button
.Insert excerpt _model_display _model_display nopanel true - To load the Excel file, drag a
from the model toolbar into the model and set Basic Settings > Name:Insert excerpt _file_collector _file_collector nopanel true Business-File
, then
the properties.Insert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - In the model, hover your mouse pointer over the file collector. PhixFlow displays a pop-up toolbar. Click
. Browse to the Excel file.Insert excerpt _upload_file _upload_file nopanel true - In the upload window, click the
button. Your model should now look like this.Insert excerpt _upload_button _upload_button nopanel true
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For file collectors, when you configure no properties, other than the name, when you upload the file PhixFlow automatically sets the other properties. If you make any changes to any field, even if you then delete the change, PhixFlow assumes you want to configure the properties yourself. |
You now need to load the spreadsheet that contains the data into your application.
- Open your application.
- Right-click
and selectInsert excerpt _model _model nopanel true
. PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the model.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - In Basic Settings > Name enter:
Businesses
- In the toolbar for the tab, click
.Insert excerpt _model_display _model_display nopanel true - In the workspace on the left, PhixFlow opens an empty model.
- To load the Excel file, drag a
from the model toolbar into the model.Insert excerpt _file_collector _file_collector nopanel true - PhixFlow opens the properties for the file collector. Add a name:
Business-File
and
the properties.Insert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - In the model, hover your mouse pointer over the file collector. PhixFlow displays a pop-up toolbar. Click
. Browse to the Excel file.Insert excerpt _upload_file _upload_file nopanel true - In the upload window, click the
button. This processInsert excerpt _upload_button _upload_button nopanel true - automatically configures the file collector properties to upload the file
- creates a stream ready to hold the data. Streams are like PhixFlow's internal spreadsheets.
Troubleshooting
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For file collectors, when you configure no properties, other than the name, when you upload the file PhixFlow automatically sets the other properties. If you make any changes to any field, even if you then delete the change, PhixFlow assumes you want to configure the properties yourself.
Loading a file into PhixFlow like this sets up the properties. There are lots of options which let you load data....
Setting Stream Properties
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Have a look at the stream properties and Setset:
- Basic Settings → Period to Transactional
- Tick Audit Manual Changes
- Attributes → Description to Bigstring
Insert excerpt _finish _finish the attribute properties.nopanel true
the stream properties and pin the stream properties to keep them open.Insert excerpt _save _save nopanel true
Script
If you look in the stream properties, you can see PhixFlow had named the file using the file collector name. It already has the list of attributes - the table columns - from the first tab in the spreadsheet.
Info title Key concept At this point the stream knows about the data, but does not contain any data. This is the time to check that stream properties and the data types and sizes are correct. You cannot make changes to the attributes once data is loaded.
- Have a look at the stream properties. The Basic Settings → Period is set to variable. In general PhixFlow assumes you are processing large datasets in batches. We are going to be making individual changes to single data records (transactions) . So that PhixFlow optimises processing for this type of data, In the Period drop-down list, select Transactional.
- In the attributes, there is one data type that we want to change. Currently the Description is set to be a string with a maximum of 500 characters. To remove this restriction, we can change it to a "big string" which can have 4000 characters.
- As we are going to have multiple people making changes to the data, it will be useful to be able to see who made changes. To set PhixFlow to track this for you, tick Audit Manual Changes.
- In the Attributes grid, double-click on description. PhixFlow opens a Description tab for the attribute. in Basic Settings → Type drop-down, select Bigstring. Click
to _finishInsert excerpt _finish nopanel true
and close the attribute description.save
your changes. Notice that the orange background tells you that the properties have unsaved changes. When you save, the backgound background colour returns to light green.Insert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - It will be useful to have the stream properties open later, so click the Pin icon.
Modify Attributes
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Modify any data attributes before loading the data into the stream. In the Attributes section, you can double-click on any attribute to open its properties and edit them. Change:
UID
to have the nameBusinessUID
Name:
- to
BusinessName
- Size to
100
- to
Description
to have the type Bigstring
a new attribute and set:Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - Name to
Comment
Expression to
_NULL
- Type to
Bigstring
- Name to
You attribute list should now look like this
Hover .
When you save the stream, PhixFlow automatically adds some additional attributes. Because you set the stream to:
- transactional, PhixFlow has added
UID
- Audit Manual Changes, PhixFlow has added 4 attributes with names starting with
Update*
If we want to make any changes to the attributes, we need to do it before we load the data into the stream. In the Attributes section, you can double-click on any attribute to open its properties and edit them.
- First lets change UID. Double-click the UID line in the Attributes table. PhixFlow opens its properties. In Basic Settings → Name, change its name to
BusinessUID
. Click
to save and close the properties.Insert excerpt _finish _finish nopanel true - We will make some more changes.
- Set
Name:
- to be called
BusinessName
- Size to
100
Insert excerpt _finish _finish nopanel true
- to be called
- Set
Description
to have the type Bigstring andInsert excerpt _finish _finish nopanel true - In the Attributes section toolbar, click
and set:Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - Name to
Comment
- Type to
Bigstring
Insert excerpt _finish _finish nopanel true
- Name to
Run Analysis
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- Hover over the BusinessData stream and select
, then click Yes to confirm.Insert excerpt _run_analysis _run_analysis nopanel true - Close the confirmation messages.
- To check that the data has loaded into the stream, hover your mouse pointer over the stream and select
then selectInsert excerpt _stream_views _stream_views nopanel true
. PhixFlow displays the data it has loaded into the stream.Insert excerpt _view_default _view_default nopanel true
Script
You can now load the data into the stream.
- In the model, hover our mouse pointer over the
BusinessData
stream and select
.Insert excerpt _run_analysis _run_analysis nopanel true - In the confirmation window, click Yes to confirm.
- In the bottom left of the
- screen, PhixFlow shows some confirmation messages. Close these.
- We can now check that the data has loaded into the stream.
- In the model, hover your mouse pointer over the stream and select
then selectInsert excerpt _stream_views _stream_views nopanel true
.Insert excerpt _view_default _view_default nopanel true
- This simply shows the data using a standard table view. You
- can see that the same data from the
Hover your mouse pointer over the BusinessData stream
Run analsis
Script
Add the following attrinbutes:
BusinessUID as an Integer
BusinessName as a String of Size 100
Comment as a Big String
Run the Stream
- Excel spreadsheet is now loaded in the stream, with the additional columns we added to the Attributes.
Create a view of the data
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Create a new Dashboard to manage our data
Add the Businesses as a Grid to the dashboard
Split dashboard vertically
This is a place holder for the Comments
Split left area horizontally
Tick Maximised.
Name buisnesses
Opens a blank dashboard on left.
Drag stram from properites, and pick grid
Select UID to Description (not audit
Drop onto header bar
Dashboard shows the grid.To view the data, create a dashboard.
- In the repository,
a dashboard.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - In the dashboard properties, set:
- the name to
Manage Contacts
andInsert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - Tick Open Maximised
- the name to
- Right-click on the dashboard and add a horizontal bar.
- From the Business File stream properties tab, drag the stream icon onto the top half of the dashboard.
- Select the "Table" icon.
- Select the attributes from BusinessUID to Description.
- Click X on the top right to close.
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You can show data as a table, but also as charts |
There are different ways to do this.
Split the dashboard horizontally and add a formLook and feel comes from default settings. You can change these |
You can now create a dashboard that uses displays data from the stream. We do this using a Dashboard. We want to have a view of the whole grid, and a form showing details of one data record.
- In the repository, find the Dashboards branch and right-click then select
.Insert excerpt _add _add nopanel true - PhixFlow opens an empty dashboard window and a properties tab for the dashboard.
- In the dashboard properties, set
- the name to
Manage Contacts
andInsert excerpt _save _save nopanel true - Tick Maximised ??
- the name to
- You want the top half of the dashboard to show the data and for the bottom half to have a form that displays details of the selected record. Right-click on the dashboard and add a horizontal bar.
- It is very easy to show the stream data in the dashboard. Open the Business File stream properties tab. You can drag the stream icon from the tab onto the top half of the dashboard.
- Select the "Table" icon.
- PhixFlow shows a list of all the attributes. In this case we will only include some of them in the dashboard. We do not need Comment or the 4 Update* attributes. Click the box in the table header to select all the attributes then clear the ticks for the last 5. The list should look like this:
- Click X on the top right to close.
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Show all palletes
Application lego bricks - gui bits as palettes templates.
Drag purple form onto the dashboard pfApp Builder (inner) Business
Uses the template to add a form.
Note splitter is draggable to adjust the proportions and scroll bars added automatically.
What attributes do you want. In stream select attributes, select, shift-drag and drop. Adds attributes.
Description goes onto right
First Tab is for Business Details
Right click and create a new form
From the Theme 1 Template drag a “Form Inner” onto the display area
Drag the attributes from the Business Stream onto the left column
Drag Description onto the right side.
Change the header to Business details
Make the header "Dynamic" to use a the data from the attribute
Initially the form does not change whith selected
Drag UID onto form.
Creates a backgound filter to use the UID to decide which is selected. See properties and say yeas
Add a sort order. If you update without a sort order, updated data
Without audit it overrides the entry in situ. Audit - marks old record as invalid and makes a new stream set. Without sort order - moves to the bottom. Sort by name, uid - use the dasboard.
LOcking and unlocking the layout
CRUD the data
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