Step 2. Define and Import Your Data

Before you start building any PhixFlow application, it is important to understand your data and what you need to do with it. For large projects this means detailed analysis using an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD).

For this example, a sales team is using an Excel spreadsheet to manage a list of customer businesses and associated contacts. You want to make it easy for the team to access and maintain the data. You also want to add some simple CRM functions, for example, to add descriptions about the business.

PhixFlow has many options that you can use to define the data, its properties and relationships. But if you already have data available you can quickly and easily load it into PhixFlow. The following video guides you through this process.

Create an analysis model

1. In the repository, right-click Analysis Model and  Add to create a new model.
2. Set Basic Settings > Name to Businesses and click  OK.
3. PhixFlow opens a new empty model on the left.

Load the Excel file

1. Drag a  File Collector from the model toolbar into the analysis model.
2. Set Basic Settings > Name: BusinessData,  and click  OK.
3. In the model, hover your mouse pointer over the file collector. PhixFlow displays a pop-up toolbar. Click Upload File and browse to the Excel file: BusinessData.xlsx.

4. In the upload window, click the   button. PhixFlow creates a new stream and opens its properties.

    Explore the possibilities

   When you upload an Excel file, PhixFlow automatically sets many of the file collector and stream properties. There are many options that you can use to load different types of data from file. To connect PhixFlow to databases you can use a

   _database_collector

    Database Collector

   .

Your model now looks like this.

In the stream properties on the right, set:

1. Basic Settings → Period to Transactional
   

    Why?

   By default, a stream is optimised for processing large volumes of data.  You are aiming to create a form for users to update individual data records (transactions). Setting this property to Transactional tells PhixFlow how you want to manage the data.

2. Tick Audit Manual Changes

    Why?

   This data will be updated manually by individuals. By ticking this box, PhixFlow will add a set of attributes to automatically record audit information about changes.

   

3. Click  Save and then click on the Pin to keep the stream properties open.  
   

4. In the Attributes section, double-click Description and change its Type to Bigstring then click  OK. 
   

    Why?

   When you create a form for the data, PhixFlow recognises that data with the type Bigstring needs the field edit tools.

   

1. In the model on the left, hover over the BusinessData stream and select  Run Analysis, then click Yes to confirm.
2. To check that the data has loaded into the stream, hover your mouse pointer over the stream and select  Stream Views then select  Default View. PhixFlow displays the data it has loaded into the stream.
3. In the model toolbar, click  Save.
4. Close any remaining confirmation messages (the green boxes in the bottom left).