Stream views allow you to present data from a stream in the form you wish: as a data grid or chart; sorted and ordered as required; showing data from the latest run, or across all time; etc.
The following fields are configured for stream views:
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- Barchart: plot a quantity as a set of bars against a set of categories along the horizontal axis.
- 3D Barchart: a 3D version of the standard barchart.
- Barchart (horizontal)
- Grid: show stream data laid out in a table.
- Line Chart (category horizontal axis): plot line, or lines, representing quantities against a horizontal axis of 'categories'. The categories are printed along the horizontal axis, ordered alphanumerically.
- Line Chart (numeric horizontal axis): plot line, or lines, representing quantities against a numerical horizontal axis.
- 3D Pie Chart: a 3D version of the standard pie chart.
- Pie Chart: show a quantity as a pie chart, grouped by a category.
- Pivot: show stream data laid out in a table, with data for values of one attribute broken out ('pivoted') into multiple columns.
- Stacked Barchart: a bar chart where multiple series/multiple attributes per category are displayed in a stacked form.
- Line Chart (times series horizontal axis): plot line, or lines, representing quantities against a date/time value - a stream attribute of type Date or Datetime.
HELPDEVTODO: no file download button on form; is this still correct anyway? If display type is a chart and the user elects to output the chart to HTML (either via a File Exporter or from a chart, PhixFlow will output the chart to HTML as a picture (.PNG).
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Tick this box to make this a form view. This can be used to accepting input from a user, for an insert or update action.
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A list of attributes displayed in the view, or to build a chart. Press to bring up a list of attributes for the stream, and drag the attributes you want to add to the view into this list.
For each attribute, the following fields are shown:
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The display name of the attribute in the view. By default, this is the same as the name of the attribute in the underlying stream.
Remember that if you are applying an Aggregate Function to the attribute, it is often useful to reflect that in the display name. For example: you are going to display the average monthly spend for each customer, by applying the aggregate function Average to the attribute CustSpend. You set the display name as CustSpendAverage.
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You can specify an Aggregate Function on this attribute. As soon as you have specified a single aggregate attribute in your view, any other fields will be either aggregate attributes - if you also specify an aggregate function for them - or used as grouping attributes.
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This setting only shows if the view is a chart, i.e. not a data grid. This is the role that the field has in generating the chart.
You can set the role manually in the stream view attribute editor - but it is generally better to create charts using the visual editor. To do this:
- drag your stream view into a dashboard
- make sure you are in design mode
- unlock the padlock in the view (if it is not already unlocked)
You will see a visual chart editor - you can drag stream attributes onto this editor to create your chart.
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HELPDEVTODO: not shown for charts, should it be? If not, put in Grid Settings section
Whether the field is shown on the view. Sometimes you need to include fields in views so that they can be used in filters and Actions, but displaying them would make the view cluttered. Make the field hidden.
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Name
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An optional label for the resulting column header. If left blank, this is the Name of the stream view attribute.
The label gives you more options for setting the column header - for example, control over the white space in the column heading - but you can also make this an expression. For example, to that the column contains transactions for the currently logged in user, you could use:
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"Transactions for " + _user.username |
For user pchevalier, this would give the column heading:
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Transactions for pchevalier |
To use an expression in this field, tick the box Label is Expression
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Set the alignment of values in this column to:
- Left
- Right
- Centre
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This sets the dropdown list from which the user can pick a value. Drag the stream view attribute that you want to use for the dropdown list into this field. The Show the dropdown button option must be ticked to display the drop down.
When a user is entering or updating data using a form view, you can use the internal variable _form to use a value already entered in the form in the filter on a selection view. That is, the values that appear in a drop down list will be governed by values they have entered so far in the form. See Configuring Selection View Attributes below for an example of configuring selection view attributes.
If another stream view attribute has a Selection View Attribute set and has Show the dropdown button set to yes, then it is possible to set the current stream view attribute from the same selection view without a further dropdown list. Drag the stream view attribute that you want to use to set this stream view attribute into this field
Drag the attribute out of the field to delete the contents of the Selection View Attribute.
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A list of the formatting rules that apply to this field in the view. This section only appears when you are configuring a grid view.
All formatting rules whose Rule Expression evaluates to true will be applied to the field in the grid. However, you can tick Stop if True so that, if a rule evaluates to true, no styles that follow this in the list of rules will be applied - regardless of the result of their Rule Expression.
For each formatting rule, set the following fields:
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A list of Refresh Actions which are all the actions that, following their execution, will cause this view to be refreshed.
To add a Refresh Action go to a Stream's Actions tab and drag actions into this tab. The stream does not have to be the parent of this stream view.
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A list of the buttons, menus and sub-menus that will be presented on this view - which buttons are available to users depends on whether they have permissions to run these actions.
Only actions that belong to the parent stream can be added to a view.
There are three ways to add Lists and Buttons:
- Click on the Actions icon at the top of the grid.
- A popup window will appear listing all the available actions on the parent stream
- Drag an action from this popup form onto the grid
- If you drop onto an existing button you will be asked if you want to:
- create a new button, or
- create a list which will hold the new button and the button you dropped the new action on to
- If you drop onto an existing list, the dragged action will be added to the list
- Go to the Stream Details Actions tab and drag actions into this tab
- Use the '+' icon at the top of the grid
- You can decide if you want to create a button, menu or sub-menu.
For each button you set the following fields:
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The list of filters which will be available to users in the drop down list of filters on the view.
There are two ways to add a filter to this list:
- Click on the filter button in this section
- A popup window will appear listing all the available filters on the parent stream
- Drag a filter from this popup into the list
- Go to the parent stream's filters and drag filters into this list
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If ticked, all users will be able to see data in this view (provided they have the basic privilege to view stream views).
If this field is unticked, a list of user groups will appear:
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HELPDEVTODO: David will probably change the name of this
Override Default Row Selection Style
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An excel template can be linked to the view to specify the format the chart data should be exported in.
The location that excel templates must be saved to is specified in the System Configuration.
Values governing the appearance of charts are configured in the Chart Layout tab.
The following fields apply to Pivot views:
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The pivot column source determines how the the values that are converted to Pivot Columns are generated:
| View Data | The pivot column values are read from the Column Attribute in the data being viewed. If the Label Attribute is specified, the label values corresponding to the value attribute values are used as pivot column headers. The is the simplest way to derive the pivot column values, but does not allow any control of the order of values, or the ability to handle missing values e.g. when generating standard reports |
| Expression | The pivot column values are the result of an expression. |
If no labels are provided, they are derived from the pivot values using the formatting options set on the Column attribute.
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If Pivot Column Source == Expression, this expression must return either a list of values or a list of pairs of values (the values and corresponding labels). E.g.
['20150101', '20150201', '20150301']
or
[ [ '20150101', 'January 2015'], [ '20150201', 'February 2015'], [ '20150301', 'March 2015'] ]
The expression can refer to any lookup pipe that is an input to the Stream being viewed.
If no labels are provided, they are derived from the pivot values using the formatting options set on the Column attribute.
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Column attribute
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Values in the Column Attribute are mapped to separate columns in the resulting view.
The formatting options on the attribute (decimal places, date/time format) can be used to automatically generate column headers corresponding to Column Attribute values.
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When the view is displayed, the value in this Value Attribute will be displayed in the column corresponding to the value in the Column Attribute.
A Pivot View is not automatically grouped. To make this a grouped view, you should set the value attribute's aggregate function (e.g. to SUM).
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The following fields apply to all graphs, that is, all display types other than Grid or Pivot:
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| Field | Description | ||||||||
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| Name | The name of the view. By default, a space will be included before each capital letter. For example, the name CustSpendAverage will be displayed in the column heading as Cust Spend Average. | ||||||||
| Display Type | A number of chart types are available:
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| Default Sort Order | If specified, the default order in which data should be displayed; see Stream View Sort Order. | ||||||||
| Default Filter | Any filter on the stream can be selected as the default filter for this view. | ||||||||
| Background Filter | Any filter on the stream can be selected as the background filter for this view. When the user opens this view the background filter is applied first and any other filter applied to the view (either specifically created/selected by the user or automatically applied as the default filter described above) applied on top of the background filter. | ||||||||
Default Action | The action that will be applied when users double-click on a row in a data grid. Often this is an update action - that allows users (if they have permissions to run the action) to update the record. But you can make this open a read-only detailed view of the record if that is more useful for most users; see Action. | ||||||||
| Drag Type | The drag type that will be used when dragging data from this view; see Drag Types and Drop Targets. | ||||||||
| Enable Filter Picker |
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| Form View |
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| Include History Records |
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| Pivot Details | This section only appears for pivot views; see Pivot Views, below. |
View Attributes
A list of attributes displayed in the view. Click 
to show the list of attributes for the stream. Drag the attributes you want to add to the view into this list.
In the list:
- to edit the attribute's properties, double-click an attribute; see Stream View Attributes.
- to delete an attribute, right-click and select
Insert excerpt _delete _delete nopanel true - to set pivot table options, right-click an attribute to open the pop-up menu, which has the options to:
- Make Pivot Value
- Make Pivot Column
- Make Pivot Row
- Make Pivot Label
- Make Pivot Row Total
Refresh Actions
A list of refresh actions. These actions, following their execution, will cause this view to be refreshed.
To add a refresh action go to the Actions tab and drag actions into this tab. The stream does not have to be the parent of this view.
Drop Targets
A list of the drop targets that this view will contain. To add a drop target, click on the + button at the top of the grid.
For each drop target you set the following fields:
| Field | Description |
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| Name | The name of the drop target. |
| Drag Type | The drag type that this drop type is listening for. |
| Drop Action | The action that will run when something of the chosen drag type is dropped onto this view. |
Menu Items
A list of the buttons, menus and sub-menus that will be presented on this view - which buttons are available to users depends on whether they have permissions to run these actions.
Only actions that belong to the parent stream can be added to a view.
There are three ways to add Lists and Buttons:
- Click on the Actions icon at the top of the grid.
- A popup window will appear listing all the available actions on the parent stream
- Drag an action from this popup form onto the grid
- If you drop onto an existing button you will be asked if you want to:
- create a new button, or
- create a list which will hold the new button and the button you dropped the new action on to
- If you drop onto an existing list, the dragged action will be added to the list
- Go to the Stream Details Actions tab and drag actions into this tab
- Use the '+' icon at the top of the grid
- You can decide if you want to create a button, menu or sub-menu.
For each button you set the following fields:
| Field | Description |
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| Drop Action | Select a drop action. |
| Name | Available for sub-menus. The internal name of the action button. This name will be used to refer to this button in other configuration objects |
| Display Name | The name that will be presented to users when they open the form. |
| Order | The order that the button will be shown in the banner of the form, or, if the button is on a list (a menu or sub-menu), the order the button will appear in that list. |
| Menu Items | Available for sub-menus. |
Filters
The list of filters which will be available to users in the drop-down list of filters on the view.
There are two ways to add a filter to this list:
- Click on the filter button in this section
- A popup window will appear listing all the available filters on the parent stream
- Drag a filter from this popup into the list
- Go to the parent stream's filters and drag filters into this list; see Filter.
Access Permissions
For details about how to control access to a view, see Common Properties → Access Permissions.
Advanced
| Field | Description | ||||||||||||||||
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| Selection Attribute | This attribute will be used to determine the record selected. This is important when the data will be refreshed while users are looking at it - for example, if they run actions that run task plans to update the data, and which are set as refresh actions (see above). Setting this using a key field of the data means that after the refresh, the same record will be selected as before. | ||||||||||||||||
| Auto Save |
If a user makes a change to a view with Auto Save selected, then clicks
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| Auto Save Action | Visible only if the 'Auto Save' flag is ticked. Allows the user to define custom Auto Save action which is fired after an another row is clicked. | ||||||||||||||||
Row Selection Style | The style that will applied to rows in this view when they are selected. If set, this will override the default selected row style set in the System Configuration. | ||||||||||||||||
| Select First Row By Default |
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| Show Paging Bar | Available when Display Type is Grid.
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| Show Records Count |
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| Show Row Number |
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| Always Show the Column Filter Icon |
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| Periods | Number of processing periods from the stream to display on the chart. If a full set of data is generated in each period, then this will be 1. If the data is spread across processing periods in the stream - for example, each processing period only contains new data for that day, but we want to plot data across a number of days - then this number must be high enough to include all data of interest to show on a chart. | ||||||||||||||||
| Default Width | The default width of the view. If empty, the view's width will be set to the system default value. | ||||||||||||||||
| Default Height | The default height of the view. If empty, the view's height will be set to the system default value. | ||||||||||||||||
| Allow Multi-Select |
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| Frozen Columns | Number of columns frozen while scrolling the View horizontally. | ||||||||||||||||
| Excel Template | An Excel template can be linked to the view to specify the format the chart data should be exported in. The location that excel templates must be saved to is specified in the System Configuration. |
Style Settings
Options for styling grids; see Style.
Chart Layout
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Available when Type is one of the chart view options. PhixFlow only shows options that are relevant for the type of chart selected.
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To configure attributes for horizontal and vertical chart axis,
PhixFlow displays a chart builder. Drag attributes from the view properties onto the chart builder boxes:
Behind the chart builder you can see the chart. To show the chart without the chart builder overlay, either lock the layout or switch to
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| Field | Description | ||||||||||||||||
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| Show Legend | When a series is used,
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| Display Legend Below The Chart |
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| Show Controls | Available when Display Type is Barchart.
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| Mark Selection | Available when Display Type is Barchart.
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| Tooltip Number Format | Select or add a number format to be applied to a chart tooltip. | ||||||||||||||||
| Colour Map | Select or add a colour map. | ||||||||||||||||
| Group Spacing | Available when Display Type is Barchart. Specify a value between 0 and 1 to define custom spacing between bar groups. |
Chart Axis Options
| Horizontal Axis Section | Vertical Axis Section | Description | ||||||||
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| Show Horizontal Axis | Show Vertical Axis |
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| Horizontal Axis Title | Vertical Axis Title | Available when Show Horizontal/Vertical Axis is ticked. The label to appear below the axis. | ||||||||
| Title Style | Title Style | Available when Show Horizontal/Vertical Axis is ticked. | ||||||||
| Label Angle | - | Available when Display Type is Barchart, Barchart (stacked) and all Line Charts. The orientation of the values displayed along the horizontal axis. Select a value from the drop-down menu. | ||||||||
| Horizontal Axis Increment | Vertical Axis Increment | Specify the interval between tick marks on the axis. For example if the data values have a range from 1 to 100, specify a value of 5 or 10. | ||||||||
Force Horizontal Axis Ticks | - |
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| - | Logarithmic Scale | Available when Display Type is any type of Line Chart.
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Minimum Value Only for | Minimum Value For charts except | Specify a minimum value to show on the axis. If the data includes lower values, they will not be plotted. If no minimum is specified, PhixFlow scales the chart from the lowest data point. | ||||||||
| Maximum Value Only for | Maximum Value For charts except | Specify a maximum value to show on the axis. If the data includes higher values, they will not be plotted. If no maximum is specified, PhixFlow scales the chart up to the highest data point. | ||||||||
Fixed Scale Only for | Fixed Scale For charts except |
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| Horizontal Axis Increment | Vertical Axis Increment | Specify a value to use as increments on the axis | ||||||||
| Show Horizontal Gridlines | Show Vertical Gridlines |
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| Horizontal Axis Date Format | Vertical Axis Date Format | Available when the attribute selected for the axis is a date or date/time. | ||||||||
| Horizontal Axis Number Format | Vertical Axis Number Format | Available when the attribute selected for the axis is a number. | ||||||||
| Text Style | Text Style | Select or add a style with properties to specify the format of the text for the axis labels |
Chart Layout: Line Chart (time)
Available when Type Line Chart (time). These apply to the horizontal axis, which in this case is a time series:
| Field | Description |
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| Primary Axis Unit | Units for date display along the horizontal axis. Choose a value from the drop-down list. Note, however, that only as many values will be displayed as can comfortably be fitted in the space available. |
| Primary Axis Format | Choose a format to display dates along the primary horizontal axis. |
| Secondary Axis Unit | Units for an optional, second date display along the horizontal axis. This might be used, for example, to create a graph where the months are shown along the primary horizontal axis (Primary Axis Unit = 'Month', Primary Axis Format = 'Jan, Feb') and the years are shown along a line below this, along the secondary horizontal axis (Secondary Axis Unit = 'Year', Secondary Axis Format = 'Four digit year'). |
| Secondary Axis Format | Choose a format to display dates along the secondary horizontal axis, if this is being used. |
Pivot View
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There are two parts to configuring a pivot view.
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- Set the stream view properties
- Configure roles for the attributes.
The stream view properties for pivot table views are:
| Field | Description |
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Colouring grid rows
The colours of particular rows can be customized by creating a Stream View Attribute called 'gridRowColour'. The value of this attribute should evaluate to either a hexadecimal value representing a colour or to the lower case name of one of the basic HTML colours. Visit www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp to see how hexadecimal values correspond to real colours.
The table below lists the basic HTML colour names:
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It is advised not to use dark colours as they may cause the grid data to be hardly visible.
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HELPDEVTODO - update screen shots and instructions as needed
Configuring Selection View Attributes is illustrated with an example:
You have a selection of items for sale, as below:
You also have a form view that allows you to edit these entries - this pops up when the Edit button is clicked:
You need to assign a tax band to each item. You also have a set of tax bands configured:
To help with this task, you will set up a selection list to populate the tax band and tax rate values for the sales items, from the list of tax bands. To do this, open the configuration form for the form view 008 Edit Sales Item, then open the configuration form for the view attribute TaxBand:
Then open the list of attributes for the view that gives the list of tax bands:
From the list of attributes that pop up, drag the attribute BandDescription into the Selection View Attribute field, and tick the Show the dropdown button flag.
Populating further attributes from the same selection view
Repeat the same process for the view attribute TaxRate, dragging the attribute BandRate from the view of tax bands into the Selection View Attribute field. This time, do not tick the Show the dropdown button flag.
The form view will now appear as:
If you press the button next to the TaxBand field the list of tax bands will appear - you can select a row from this list by double-clicking it. This will populate the TaxBand and TaxRate fields for the sales item with the selected tax band details:
Controlling drop-down lists with other form values
You can use values that users have already entered into a form to control the values that appear in a drop down list. This is done by using the internal variable _form. Add a background filter on the view used in the selection view attribute, and include a clause which uses the value _form.formAttributeName to match values in the selection view with the value entered by the user in the attribute formAttributeName.
Model Ref: 008
Form Icons
The form provides the standard form icons.
See Also
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| Pivot Column Source | This controls how the field given the role Pivot Column will be used to generate columns in the pivot stream. Choose from one of:
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| Pivot Column Expr | If Pivot Column Source == Expression, this expression must return either a list of values or a list of pairs of values (the values and corresponding labels). The expression can refer to any lookup pipe that is an input to the parent stream of the view. E.g.
In this example the resulting view displays three pivot columns. The pivot view only displays data where the value of the pivot column attribute equals one of the three quoted values - data that does not match any of the pivot column values is ignored. The pivot column labels are generated from the pivot values using the formatting rules of the Pivot Column field. In particular, the Label expression can be used to generate formatted label values automatically. If no formatting or Label expression is provided, a default label is generated. This is the recommended way of formatting column labels. E.g.
In the second example, the same data is displayed, but the column headers are provided in the second values for each pivot column. This method of setting column labels is not recommended, and is provided for compatibility with existing pivot views. | ||||
| Maximum Pivot Columns | This is the maximum number of pivot columns that can be displayed. If this is blank, the system-wide default in System Configuration is used. |
To configure roles for attributes in a pivot view, each attribute must be assigned to one of the following roles.
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Pivot Column | This field will be used to generate columns in the pivot table. Formatting of the column headings will be controlled by the formatting options set on this view attribute. A Pivot view must have one and only one Pivot Column attribute. |
| Pivot Row | This field will be used to generate the rows of the pivot. A Pivot View can have any number of Pivot Row attributes. |
| Pivot Label | If Pivot Column Source == View Data, this attribute provides the pivot column headings. In most cases, the number of values for the pivot label should be exactly the same as the number of values for the pivot column. A Pivot View can have at most one Pivot Column attribute. |
| Pivot Value | The values in this field will be used to generate the data values in the pivot. You must apply an aggregate function (Table Function) to this attribute - to provide the sum, max, min, etc. of these values for each row and column. A Pivot view must have one and only one Pivot Value attribute. |
| Pivot Row Total | Each Pivot Row Total attribute generates a value for each row calculated as an aggregate of the individual pivot column values. The aggregate function can be any single-valued Aggregate Function (Sum, Minimum, Maximum, Average, Count). A Pivot View can have any number of Pivot Row Total attributes. |
Grid View: How to Configure Coloured Rows
The colours of rows in grid views can be set by creating an attribute called gridRowColour, and adding this to the view. This value will not be shown in the grid.
The value of this attribute must evaluate to either a hexadecimal value representing a colour or to the lower case name of one of the basic HTML colours. Visit www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp to see how hexadecimal values correspond to real colours. The table below lists the basic HTML colour names:
| Aqua | Black | Blue | Fuchsia |
| Gray | Green | Lime | Maroon |
| Navy | Olive | Purple | Red |
| Silver | Teal | White | Yellow |
You are recommended to avoid dark colours as they make data in the grid very hard to read.
View Context Menu
| Show Record Details | Opens a window with all the information contained in that grid row |
| View Properties | Opens the properties tab for the stream view. |
| Table Properties | Opens the properties tab for the stream. |
| List Attributes <viewName> | Opens a list of all of the attributes (column headers) for this stream view. Attributes formatted in italics are present in the stream but are hidden in the grid. To change whether an attribute is hidden or visible, right-click the attribute and select Show this column or Hide this column. |