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.

1. Add buttons for actions
   1. Add a "floating" form to add a description.
   2. Add the action to update stream
   3. Show the form in action - that is is always on top, and that save also closes the pop-up. 
2. Linking forms together
   1. Add a comments stream to the model
   2. Add comment cards
   3. 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.
   4. Add actions to the card
   5. Show the audit attributes on the card
   6. 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.

1. In the repository, right-click on Application and select  Add. 
2. PhixFlow opens a properties tab for the application. Enter the name: tbc
3. Click  Save.
4. When prompted to load the application, say yes.

Add screenshot/video

Creation might create a menu

Create an Analysis Model  

You now need to load the spreadsheet that contains the data into your application.

1. Open your application
2. Right-click  Models
3. Name Businesses - feeds into name elsewhere
4. Create a file collector and save as businesses save and close. Autoconfiugure to use defaults
   1. Anything you change means PhixFlow thinks you want to hand-configure it.
5. Load the file.
6. The file collector automatically treats it as a managed file and  creates the stream. 
7. 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

1. 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