This page guides you through the Sandbox Demo which is installed as an Application in the repository. The Quick Start takes about 30 minutes to complete. To access the demo, and follow these instructions from within PhixFlow:
- Run your PhixFlow installation. If necessary:
- Switch to Design Mode
- Expand the Applications branch.
- Expand the Help Viewer.
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Introduction
PhixFlow is a flexible platform that can help you to manage your data. This Quick Start Guide guides you through the process of setting up data and building an application to view and update the data.
The quick start?? takes you through the steps to load the Excel spread sheet and to build a simple application to interact with the data. The Application will have a single screen, called a layout, that displays the data and lets you create, read, update or delete (CRUD ) data records. These are known as CRUD actions.
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.
Remember that you can:
- PhixFlow can connect to data stored in external databases (list or link?) or data files in a range of formats (list or link?)
- PhixFlow analysis models are a powerful tool that you can use on any data project. Analysis models can help you to improve your data integrity, by
- identifying missing data, duplication and variation
- reconciling data in different files or systems.
- The Introduction to Modelling Course shows how to do this
- set up your own styles and palettes to create completely customised layouts. The Building Applications Course goes through this process.
- Add buttons for actions
- Add a "floating" form to add a description.
- Add the action to update stream
- Show the form in action - that is is always on top, and that save also closes the pop-up.
- Linking forms together
- Add a comments stream to the model
- Add comment cards
- As layouts are not a fixed structure, but "flow" their order in the repository is important. To reorder an item, you don't drag it in the layout, but in the repository.
- Add actions to the card
- Show the audit attributes on the card
- Add comments on the card.
Planning
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 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.
- How does the data connect? These connections are the data relationships.
- 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?
The starting point for this quick start is that your business is using an Excel spreadsheet to manage a list of Business contacts. The data represents business customers (location, turnover) and people (names and addresses), and has the following tabs.
Businesses tab:
Contacts tab:
The spreadsheet is currently maintained by one person, but 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
- comments, for example about recent conversations with the business contact.
This is an example of how PhixFlow can pull in the ad hoc files that people use and maintain (shadow IT), whilst making it easy for multiple people to maintain.
Create an Application
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 Add.
- PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the application. Enter the name:
tbc
- Click Save.
- When prompted to load the application, say yes.
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Creation might create a menu
Create an Analysis Model
You now need to load the spreadsheet that contains the data into your application.
- Open your application
- Right-click Models
- Name Businesses - feeds into name elsewhere
- Create a file collector and save as businesses save and close. Autoconfiugure to use defaults
- Anything you change means PhixFlow thinks you want to hand-configure it.
- Load the file.
- The file collector automatically treats it as a managed file and creates the stream.
- Stream properties
Palette is blank
Import data
Import the Spreadsheet
Stream configured for bulk analysis and optimisies it for large data volumen analysis. As You want to do something a bit
Create a stream
Set Period to: Transactional - phixflow optimises for small transactions - UID
Set Audit Manual Changes to: Ticked To track multiple people updating it manually - select this
Set Description to: Big String
Run the Stream
Note that you need to make bigstring. If you run the stream and load the data you cannot then change the data type
Save (keep open) To keep it handy pin it.
Run analsis
New Stream
Have a look at the data in the default view.
Now create a mini application - which iwe call adashboard.
Add attributes
Add the following attrinbutes:
BusinessUID as an Integer
BusinessName as a String of Size 100
Comment as a Big String
- Run the Stream
Add a Dashboard
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.
There are different ways to do this.
Split the dashboard horizontally and add a form
Add a form
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
Link Tab to data
From the Businesses Grid, drag the UID down onto the Business Detail form.
This creates a link, so the selected Business Is displayed.
Second Tab is for Contact Details
To be completed once we import the contact details.
I now want to show a map: of where the busi
Content drag shift drop
Another area for the map Drag in the map - you may need to add a container first.
To actually see the map you ave to lock the dashboard.
Add a form for comments
...
Right click on the Comments column and create a form.
Set the form to Stream Comments created in 2d
From the Palette Theme 1 Template drag the item: Comment Header, onto the new form.
From the Palette App Builder Labelled drag the item: Card Container, onto the new form.
From the Palette Theme 1 Template drag the item: Comment Card, onto the small white card in the CardContainer.
Hold shift while doing this so the items is embedded.
Add a dashboard
Create a Dashboard, this will be used to edit our comments.
Create a new form.
From the Palette Theme 1 Template drag the item: Form Floating, onto the new form.
From the Repository delete:
Column Line Break
Column 2
Drag the following attributes from the Comments Stream onto content container:
UID
Hide
BusinessUID
Hide
Comment
Give the header a sensible name and delete the dynamic text