Analysis Model Window Layout

You are here, below is a simplified view of the screen editor.

1. The Toolbar provides screen specific options, such as displaying existing tables which can be added to the canvas and the option to create new tables or file collectors.
2. The Repository and Property Editors are displayed to the right of the canvas. They provide navigation to locate existing items, the ability to create new items and access to the options for each editable item.
3. The Canvas area where the Analysis Model will be configured. New items, such as Tables and File Collectors, can be added to the canvas by dragging on the associated toolbar icon, existing items are added by dragging the items from the repository onto the canvas.
4. Steps, such as Tables and Datasources appear on the canvas and are connected by pipes. Pipes perform different roles such as allowing data to flow through (solid lines) or performing lookups (dashed line) to retrieve additional information such as looking up a product code and returning its name.

Analysis Models Overview

Models are the graphical representation of the analysis that will be carried out by PhixFlow. Analysis Models define how data is collected, transformed, viewed, analysed and exported. Analysis models are made up of steps, each of which performs one or more of these functions. For example a datasource allows PhixFlow to connect to external data for the purposes of retrieving it and writing back to it; a Table (formerly known as a stream) allows you to write functions that will manipulate the data, such as to remove invalid records that do not meet your requirements..

The Analysis Models are the main back-end process in PhixFlow that performs calculations, data collections and analysis. The Analysis models run whenever the generation of a Table is requested. This can be triggered in three ways:

• An ad-hoc request from the stream navigator, by right-clicking on the stream generator and selecting Run Analysis.
• An ad-hoc request from a model, by clicking the 

  Insert excerpt
  _run_analysis _run_analysis nopanel true

   in the stream's pop-up toolbar.
• By a task plan.

The best way to get started with modelling is the Introduction to Modelling Course.

As PhixFlow runs the analysis process, it reports on progress using messages in the System Console. You can open the system console up at any time by clicking the icon  on the task bar. The analysis calculations depend on the properties set in the modelling objects, in particular:

• Datasources
• Database Collectors 
• File Collectors 
• Streams 
• Database Exporters 
• File Exporters

Once you are familiar with the basic of modelling, this section contains more pages about common modelling tasks and on the fundamentals of PhixFlow Analysis.

What Next?