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When creating a screen, it is easier to have data available as it allows you to dynamically create many items and see how the screen will look when populated. For this reason, we will import the data downloaded from chapter 1. Help and Resources.

There are many ways to import data, however for our example, we will import our data into an ERD which will make it available to our screens later in this course.
Further reading on different ways to import data can be found here.

Create an ERD

  1. From your application's home screen, click  ERD.
  2. The ERD screen opens.
  3. Click  Add New and enter:
    1. Name, My Data
    2. Description, a description of what the ERD will be used for.
    3.  
    4. Click Create.

Upload Data

  1. On your PC open the folder containing all of the resource files downloaded and extracted in chapter 1.
  2. Note, the files must be extracted from the folder before importing the data to PhixFlow.
  3. Drag the following files, one at a time, onto your ERD diagram:
    1. Companies
    2. Employees
    3. ISOCountryCodes
    4. Order-Lines
    5. Orders
  4. The tables are created in PhixFlow and will be available to our screens when we create them.


If you have data in PhixFlow already, you can add these tables to your ERD from the repository:

  1. To access your tables click the  Table.
  2. Locate your table.
  3. Drag it from the repository onto the ERD.
  4. If you do not have a primary key set it is strongly recommended you do so, see the next section for details. Setting a Display Name is recommended but optional.

Set the Attributes

Now we will set up the following:

  • Primary Keys for each table so we can uniquely identify each record.
  • Display Names so we see the defined field instead of an ID. 
  • Relationships between tables so we can create relational views.
  • See Understanding ERDs for more information on these concepts.
  1. Companies Table
    1. Right-click on CompanyID, and select Make Primary Key.
    2. Right-click on CompanyName, and select Make Display Name.
  2. Employee Table
    1. Right-click on EmployeeID, and select Make Primary Key.
    2. Right-click on first_name, and select Make Display Name.
  3. ISO Country Codes Tables
    1. Right-click on CountryCode, and select Make Primary Key.
    2. Right-click on CountryName, and select Make Display Name.
  4. Orders Table
    1. Right-click on Order_ID, and select Make Primary Key.
  5. Order Lines Table
    1. Right-click on OrderLineID, and select Make Primary Key.

Set the Table Relationships 

Relationships between tables allow us to associate the data logically using keys. For example, the company MyBusiness Ltd has these Employees. We use primary and foreign keys to create relationships.

  1. Companies to Employees
    1. On the Companies table, click and hold on the attribute CompanyID and drag it onto CompanyID on the Employee table. This will later allow us to access company information on a view of data showing employees i.e. who the employee works for. This is illustrated here. 
      1.  
  2. Companies to ISOCountryCodes
    1. On the Companies table, click and hold on the attribute CountryCode and drag it onto CountryCode on the ISOCountryCode table. This will allow us to store a Country Code against the company but display the more ubiquitous Country Name in view.
  3. Companies to Orders
    1. On the Companies table drag CompanyID onto Customer_ID on the Orders table.
  4. Orders to OrderLines
    1. On the Orders table drag Order_ID onto OrderID on the OrderLines table.

Adding Bends

Adding bends to the relationship lines allows us to keep our diagrams neat and clear.

  1. Add bends to your relationships by clicking and holding the relationship line and dragging it to the required location:


Checkpoint

Your diagram should look like this:

Adding Data using an Analysis Model

If you have a large amount of data, the data is held in a different format or the data needs to be processed before it is ready to be displayed, for example, if it needs deduplicating or enriching, then you will need to import your data through an Analysis Model. Once your data is in an Analysis Model you can enrich and process it. For more information on this topic see:


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