Step 2. Define and Import Your Data

The next step is to understand your data. For this quick start exercise, your data is in this BusinessData.xls file, which you need to download to your computer.

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Summary of Steps

Plan your data (optional)

Before you start any PhixFlow project, 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.

Upload data into PhixFlow

Create an analysis model

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

Load the Excel file

Drag a File Collector from the model toolbar into the model.
Set Basic Settings > Name: BusinessData, and click Apply and Close.
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.
In the upload window, click the Upload 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.

Set some data properties

In the stream properties on the right, set:

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.
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.
Click Apply and then click on the Pin to keep the stream properties open.
In the Attributes section, double-click Description and change its Type to Bigstring then click Apply and Close.
Why?
When you create a form for the data, PhixFlow recognises that data with the type Bigstring needs field edit tools.

Explore the possibilities

Look in the Attributes section. When you connect PhixFlow to the Excel spreadsheet, it automatically identifies the properties of the data columns (attributes) such as their type (string, numerical) and length. This also happens when you connect PhixFlow to data stored in databases.

Import the data

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

You have now imported the spreadsheet data into PhixFlow.

You are now ready for step 3, create a user screen, which will display this data to your application users.

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