This page is for data modellers and application designers whe want to select specific attributes to appear in a dashboard, and to format how the data will be displayed.

Overview

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.

Reports can be sent out from PhixFlow by emailing the output of a File Exporter, a Task Plans , or a Dashboard.

Properties

For information about the properties toolbar, and about the sections Parent Details, Analysis Models, Description and Audit Summary, see Common Properties. We recommend you always add a Description that explains the purpose of the item you are creating.

For a full list of all the PhixFlow property tabs and windows, see Properties, Windows, Menus and Toolbars.

Basic Settings

Sections on this page

Field	Description
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: 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 data laid out in a grid. 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 data laid out in a stream, 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 - an attribute of type Date or Datetime.
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 Changed to Double-click 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. Todo-Fiona - check
Drag Type	The drag type that will be used when dragging data from this view. See Drag Types and Drop Targets.
Enable Filter Picker	Tick to allow the filter picker to be used for filters created for this view. See Filters on Data Views.
Form View	Tick to make this a form view. This can be used to accepting input from a user, for an insert or update action.
Include History Records	Tick to include audit records in the view data. If set, superseded records will be identified by a grey background on the grid row. If not set, superseded records will be filtered out.

View Attributes

A list of attributes displayed in the view, or to build a chart. Click 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 see

Refresh Actions

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 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
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

OWN PAGE??

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
Drop Action	Select a drop action. todo-Fiona what is this
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. todo-fiona more info

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
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	Tick to save the edited row after another row is clicked. If a user makes a change to a view with Auto Save selected, then clicks Refresh, PhixFlow runs auto save first.
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	Tick to automatically select the first row shown in the view when the view is opened.
Show Paging Bar	Available when Display Type is Grid. Tick to show the paging bar by default.
Show Records Count	Tick to calculate the total number of rows. Users do not have to click the '...' symbol to see this information.
Show Row Number	Tick to display the row number on the grid.
Always Show the Column Filter Icon	Tick to always display the a filter icon on this grid's column headers. This means users can quickly select values on which to filter the grid.
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	Tick to enable users to select more than one row in the grid.
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

Available when Type is one of the chart view options.

Field	Description
Show Legend	When a series is used, if this is turned on then a box listing all lines shown, along with the corresponding values, is displayed on the graph.
Display Legend Below The Chart	Tick to display the legend below the chart. Untickto display the legend above the chart.
Show Controls	Visible only for Bar Charts. Tick to display the Grouped/Stacked switch.
Mark Selection	Visible only for Bar Charts. Tick to add a visible border around the currently selected bar.
Tooltip Number Format	Format Number to be applied to a chart tooltip.
Colour Map	Select or add a colour map
Group Spacing	Visible only for Bar Charts. Allows the user to define a custom spacing between bar groups. Can take values between 0-1.
Show Horizontal Axis
Horizontal Axis Title	The label given to the horizontal axis.
Title Style	Style of the horizontal axis title.
Label Angle	The orientation of the values displayed along the horizontal axis. Select a value from the drop-down menu.
Show Horizontal Gridlines	Whether to show horizontal grid lines on the view
Horizontal Axis Date Format	Visible only if the X-Axis attribute is Date or DateTime. Allows to define a Date Format for X-Axis value labels.
Horizontal Axis Number Format	Visible only if the X-Axis attribute is Number. Allows to define a Number Format for X-Axis value labels.
Text Style	Style of the horizontal axis value labels.
Vertical Axis
Vertical Axis Title	The label given to the vertical axis.
Title Style	Style of the vertical axis title.
Minimum Value	Minimum value along the vertical axis to be displayed. This value will be lowest point on the vertical axis if any value in the data plotted falls below this value. Otherwise, the graph will be automatically sized as normal.
Maximum Value	Maximum value along the vertical axis to be displayed. This value will be the highest point on the vertical axis if any value in the data plotted falls above this value. Otherwise, the graph will be automatically sized as normal.
Fixed Scale	If fixed scale is turned on, the the maximum value and minimum value defined will always be used as the highest and lowest points on the vertical axis, regardless of the data plotted.
Show Vertical Gridlines	Whether to show vertical grid lines on the view
Vertical Axis Number Format	Allows to define a Number Format for Y-Axis value labels.
Text Style	Style of the vertical axis value 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:

todo-fiona - these options are not showing

Field	Description
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.

Configuring View Attributes for Charts

The best way to configure the chart attributes is to add the chart to a dashboard, and then use the graphical chart builder in design mode to set the attributes to create the chart you need.

You can, however, set the role of each attribute manually if you wish.

Pivot View Properties

For pivot views, the property tab includes the following settings.

Field	Description
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: View Data - the pivot columns are generated directly from the data in the Pivot Column field. If a field has been given the role Pivot Label, the label values corresponding to values in the Pivot Column field will be used as pivot column headers. The is the simplest way to generate the pivot columns, 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.
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. ['20150101', '20150201', '20150301'] 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. [['20150101', 'January 2015'], ['20150201', 'February 2015'], ['20150301', 'March 2015']] 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.
Include History Records	Todo-Fiona

The stream view attributes for a pivot table must have the following roles set.

Todo-Fiona I can't see where to set the roles

To configure a pivot view, add attributes and set the role of each attribute according to these rules.

Each attribute must be assigned to one of these roles.

Role	Description
Pivot Column	This field will be used to generate columns in the pivot table. See Configuring Pivot Details on the View below. 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. See Configuring Pivot Details on the View below.
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.

View