Viewing table data

TIBCO EBX® offers a customization mechanism for tables via the 'Views' feature. A view allows specifying which columns should be displayed as well as the display order. Views can be managed by profile thanks to the recommended views concept.

'View' menu

The 'View' drop-down menu allows accessing all available views and management features.

Views are managed in a dedicated sub-menu: 'Manage views'.

Views can also be grouped. An administrator has to define groups beforehand in 'Views configuration' under the 'Groups of views' table. The end-user can then set a view as belonging to a group through the field 'View group' upon creation or modification of the view. See 'View description' for more information.

Sorting data

To simply sort a single column in a table, click on the column title. The first click will sort by ascending order and a second click will reverse the sorting.

Note that the default order is by ascending primary key.

For more advanced sorting, custom sort criteria allow specifying the display order of records.

To define custom sort criteria, click on the 'Select and sort' button in the workspace.

Each sort criterion is defined by a column name and a sort direction, that is, ascending or descending. Use the 'Move left' or 'Move right' arrows to add or remove a criterion from the 'Sorted' table. When a criterion is highlighted, you can set its sort direction by clicking on the 'ASC' or 'DESC' button to the right.

To change the priority of a sort criterion, highlight it in the list, then use the up and down arrow buttons to move it.

To remove a custom sort order that is currently applied, select View > Reset.

Searching and filtering data

The feature for searching and filtering records is accessible via the icon in the workspace.

When criteria are defined for a search or filter, a checkbox appears in the title bar of the pane to apply the filter. When unchecked, the search or filter is not applied.

Search

In simple mode, the 'Search' tool allows adding type-contextual search criteria to one or more fields. Operators relevant to the type of a given field are proposed when adding a criterion.

By enabling the advanced mode, it is possible to build sub-blocks containing criteria for more complex logical operations to be involved in the search results computation.

Text search

The text search is intended for plain-text searches on one or more fields. The text search does not take into account the types of the fields being searched for.

• If the entered text contains one or more words without wildcard characters (* or ?), matching fields must contain all specified words. Words between quotes, for example "aa bb", are considered to be a single word.

• Standard wildcard characters are available: * (any text) or ? (any character). For performance reasons, only one of these characters can be entered in each search.

• Wildcard characters themselves can be searched for by escaping them with the character '\'. For example '\*' will search for the asterisk character.

Examples:

• aa bb: field contains 'aa' and 'bb'.

• aa "bb cc": field contains 'aa' and 'bb cc'.

• aa*: field label starts with 'aa'.

• *bb: field label ends with 'bb'.

• aa*bb: field label starts with 'aa' and ends with 'bb'.

• aa?: field label starts with 'aa' and is 3 chars long.

• ?bb: field label ends with 'bb' and is 3 chars long.

• aa?bb: field label starts with 'aa' and ends with 'bb' and is 5 chars long.

• aa\*bb: field contains 'aa*bb' as is.

For large tables, it is recommended to select only one field, and for cases where the field type is not a string, to try to match the format type. For example:

• boolean: Yes, No

• date: 01/01/2000

• numeric: 100000 or 100,000

• enumerated value: Red, Blue...

The text search can be made case sensitive, that is distinguishing between upper and lower case, by checking the 'Case sensitive' checkbox.

Validation messages filter

The validation messages filter allows viewing records according to their status as of the last validation performed. Available levels are: 'Errors', 'Warnings', or 'Information'.

Custom table searches

Additional custom filters can be specified for each table in the data model.

Views

It is possible to customize the display of tables in EBX® according to the target user. There are two types of views: tabular and hierarchical.

A view can be created by selecting View > Create a new view in the workspace. To apply a view, select it in View > name of the view.

Two types of views can be created:

• 'Simple tabular view': A table view to sort and filter the displayed records.

• 'Hierarchical view': A tree view that links data in different tables based on their relationships.

View description

When creating or updating a view, the first page allows specifying general information related to the view.

Documentation	Localized label and description associated with the view.
Owner	Name of the owner of the view. This user can manage and modify it. (Only available for administrators and dataset owners)
Share with	Other profiles allowed to use this view from the 'View' menu. Note Requires a permission, see Views permissions.
View mode	Simple tabular view or hierarchical view.
View group	Group to which this view belongs (if any).

Simple tabular views

Simple tabular views offer the possibility to define criteria to filter records and also to select the columns that will be displayed in the table.

Displayed columns	Specifies the columns that will be displayed in the table.
Sorted columns	Specifies the sort order of records in the table. See Sorting data.
Filter	Defines filters for the records to be displayed in the table. See Criteria editor.
Pagination limit	Forces a limit to the number of visible records.
Grid edit	If enabled, users of this view can switch to grid edit, so that they can edit records directly from the tabular view.
Disable create and duplicate	If yes, users of this view cannot create nor duplicate records from the grid edit.

Hierarchical views

A hierarchy is a tree-based representation of data that allows emphasizing relationships between tables. It can be structured on several relationship levels called dimension levels. Furthermore, filter criteria can be applied in order to define which records will be displayed in the view.

Hierarchy dimension

A dimension defines dependencies in a hierarchy. For example, a dimension can be specified to display products by category. You can include multiple dimension levels in a single view.

Hierarchical view configuration options

This form allows configuring the hierarchical view options.

Display records in a new window	If 'Yes', a new window will be opened with the record. Otherwise, it will be displayed in a new page of the same window.
Prune hierarchy	If 'Yes', hierarchy nodes that have no children and do not belong to the target table will not be displayed.
Display orphans	If 'Yes', hierarchy nodes without a parent will be displayed.
Display root node	If 'No', the root node of the hierarchy will not be displayed in the view.
Root node label	Localized label of the hierarchy root node.
Toolbar on top of hierarchy	Allows to set the toolbar on top of the hierarchy.
Display non-matching children	In a recursive case, when a search filter is applied, allows the display of non-matching children of a matching node during a search.
Remove recursive root leaves	In a recursive case, when a search filter is applied or if the mode is 'pruned', removes from the display the root leaves.
Detect cycle	Allow cycle detection and display in a recursive case, the oldest node record will be chosen as the cycle root. Limitation: does not work in search or pruned mode.

Labels

For each dimension level that references another table, it is possible to define localized labels for the corresponding nodes in the hierarchy. The fields from which to derive labels can be selected using the built-in wizard.

Filter

The criteria editor allows creating a record filter for the view.

Ordering field

In order to enable specifying the position of nodes in a hierarchical view, you must designate an eligible ordering field defined in the table on which the hierarchical view is applied. An ordering field must have the 'Integer' data type and have a 'Hidden' default view mode in its advanced properties in the data model definition.

Except when the ordering field is in 'read-only' mode or when the hierarchy is filtered, any field can be repositioned.

By default, if no ordering field is specified, child nodes are sorted alphabetically by label.

Actions on hierarchy nodes

Each node in a hierarchical view has a menu containing contextual actions.

Leaf nodes can be dissociated from their parent record using 'Detach from parent'. The record then becomes an orphan node in the tree, organized under a container "unset" node.

Leaf nodes can also change parent nodes, using 'Attach to another parent'. If, according to the data model, a node can have relationships to multiple parents, the node will be both under the current parent and added under the other parent node. Otherwise, the leaf node will be moved under the other parent node.

View sharing

Users having the 'Share views' permission on a view are able to define which users can display this view from their 'View' menu.

To do so, simply add profiles to the 'Share with' field of the view's configuration screen.

View publication

Users having the 'Publish views' permission can publish views present in their 'View' menu.

A published view is then available to all users via Web components, workflow user tasks, data services and perspectives. To publish a view, go to View > Manage views > name of the view > Publish.

Views management

Manage recommended views

When a user logs in with no view specified, their recommended view (if any) is applied. Otherwise, the default view is applied. The 'Manage recommended views' action allows defining assignment rules of recommended views depending on users and roles.

Available actions on recommended views are: change order of assignment rules, add a rule, edit existing rule, delete existing rule.

Thus, for a given user, the recommended views are evaluated according to the user's profile: the applied rule will be the first that matches the user's profile.

Manage views

The 'Manage views' sub-menu offers the following actions:

Define this view as my favorite	Only available when the currently displayed view is NOT the recommended view. The favorite view will be automatically applied when accessing the table.
Define recommended view as my favorite	Only available when a favorite view has already been defined. This will remove the user's current favorite view. A recommended view, similarly to a favorite view, will be automatically applied when accessing the table. This menu item is not displayed if no favorite view has been defined.

Grid edit

The grid edit feature allows to modify data in a table view. This feature can be accessed by clicking on the button.

Accessing the grid edit from a table view requires that the feature be previously activated in the view configuration.

Copy/paste

The copy/paste of one or more cells into another one in the same table can be done through the Edit menu. It is also possible to use the associated keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.

This system does not use the operating system clipboard, but an internal mechanism. As a consequence, copying and pasting a cell in an external file will not work. Conversely, pasting a value into a table cell won't work either.

All simple type fields using built-in widgets are supported.

History

The history feature allows tracking changes on master data.

The history feature must have been previously enabled at the data model level. See Advanced properties for tables for more information.

To view the history of a dataset, select Actions > History in the navigation pane.

To view the history of a table or of a selection of records, select Actions > View history in the workspace.

Several history modes exist, which allow viewing the history according to different perspectives:

History in current dataspace	The table history view displays operations on the current branch. This is the default mode.
History in current dataspace and ancestors	The table history view displays operations on the current branch and on all its ancestors.
History in current dataspace and merged children	The table history view displays operations on the current branch and on all its merged children.
History in all dataspaces	The table history view displays operations on the whole branch hierarchy.

In the history view, use the VIEW menu in order to switch to another history mode.

User guide table of contents