queries - wish list

RocketRod

I would like to see some addtional capability built into queries which are a mainstay of AwareIM. In face value two of the changes appear minor but support is best to answer on that. But I believe that these changes would give users much improved flexibility which exists in many other packages.

Introduce for the developer the ability to have columns "available for display" to work in conjunction with the existing displayed check box that exists now. So all columns selected for displayed of course will automatically have their available for display checked as well. So when a user selects the column drop down box to choose columns from a query grid he has the list of available columns to choose from and not just the columns originally displayed. It appears that this would be a minor change as the select statement would work off the available for display and the ability to turn columns off and on already exists for the user. Initially the user would be presented with what the developer set to be displayed.

Support is point 1 a minor or major change and does the community think it worthwhile?

This I guess would be a major change but I would like if the above can be introduced for each user to be able to save their desired format for each query. It acts as an override. If no override exists for a user for the query run then they get presented with the standard format. if this can't be achieved then i would still like to see point 1 introduced if it is indeed a minor change.

Support is point 2 a minor or major change and does the community think it worthwhile?

If point 2 is a major change then a second suggestion would be to introduce a clone of the "Manage queries" command which is "Manage existing queries". In otherwords a user can add (create) their own query based on an existing query. So when a user selects the ADD button they get a dropdown list of queries not Bo's they have access to. When they select they query it takes a copy of the original query but only allows the user to modify the attributes to display and the sort sequence. The data selection cannot be altered as many developers qualify the data selection based on systemsettings or loggedIn user attrubutes which we would not want the user to change. This again I perceive as a more simple change as the functionality again already exists its just a tweak. This would allow users to save their own format of a query, not as nice as point 2 above but at least it means that everytime they a run a query they would not have to change their desired columns.

Support is point 3 a minor or major change and does the community think it worthwhile?

Comments most welcome from all.

Cheers Rod

RocketRod

Mmm no comments so a lost cause I guess. Just a further note to maybe get some interest from support or others.

Departments within the same company view the same data in different ways based on their requirements. For example despatch, credit control, sales and customer service all view order information differently. Instead of the developer having to set up many queries they would just set up one with a larger number of attributes available for display and let the users decide which of the attributes they want to see. Of course saving this set up or override at a user level as I call it would be advantageous so the user did not have to do it everytime.

Also it would assist in exporting as the user could turn on for display all availabe attributes. Even though the screen would not look pretty they could export it all using existing AwareIm functionality.

As I have said I don't see that having two check boes one for attributes available for display and one that is displayed initially would be a big change but only support can comment. the second part in saving it probably is. But I think as queries are one of the backbones of AwareIm this would be a powerful addtion, even if it was just the first option.

Well I've had my say so I will leave it now.....

Cheers Rod

nlarson

I did not see your post till now or I would have commented. This is definitely on my wish list. That' said I don't think it's a minor thing given the way we had to do this with SatuitCRM, the widget toolkits like EXTJS, DHTMLx, and others do not typically support this type of mechanic natively so you need to do it all server side... not that hard but you need to do some heavy lifting to…

Create a UI configuration tool to allow users to configure the columns.
Need to save every query per user
Once you have 1 and 2 in place with solves Rocket’s request I would add the following which are very simple if 1 and 2 are solved. Store the following for each user query…
users column width definition
users Colum display order
users default sort order

Further once you are doing all these things then the logical next step is to let the user save 'flavors' of the query and reuse them later, for example on a dashboard. Doing this is a major win for users and developers. For users they get all the power, for dev’s we get to stop trying to be mind readers.

This is exactly how we handle the SatuitCRM UI which has won awards for usability. I am sure this would be a good deal of work, but I also know it would be an utterly unique feature for Aware vs. the competition.

aware_support

I had to read the topic 3 times to realize that it talks about problems in user-defined queries. Does it, indeed?

It all boils down to two things, really, as far I understand:

1) End users need to select from all attributes to display in their user defined queries, not just the ones that the configurator defined. But doesn't it already?

2) End users need to be able to re-use the presentation of their user-defined queries.

Without having UDQ module in front of me now I cannot say whether 1) is already there but it seems to me that it is. 2) Can be implemented by allowing users to copy queries and then modify them (this is a relatively easy change)

As far as nlarsom's post is concerned - most of these things have already been implemented in user defined queries (except item 3)

Am I missing the point entirely?

nlarson

Not entriely, but a solid chunk is missing... IMHO UDQ is a partial solution. I'll put up a video to show what I mean tomorrow. In this case I think a picture will be work about 5,000 words 🙂

RocketRod

Its not about UDQ's at all. That was only suggested as a solution if the proposed improvements can not be done on standard queries.

On any query a developer would be presented with two check boxes instead of one for each attribute.

Available for display

and

Display initially

This allows the developer and hence the user much more freedom in what to display. As I stated the user can check off columns to display now and change the sort sequence! The only change here is that there would be more columns to choose from to display or not AND they would not all be turned on for display initially as is the case now. This not only gives the user greater freedom in design but will assist with the existing export feature as the user can turn on all columns to export. It does not need to look pretty on the screen as its only being used to export the data.

This is why I said I thought this improvement was a minor change as a lot of the stuff is already there.

NOW THE DIFFICULT PART!!

Once a user has this in his hands of course they would like to save their personal format rather than have to change it each and everytime they run a query! Also they would love to be able to save several formats for the one query! These could be displayed as tabs on the query. As this is probably a major change to AwareIm and therefore may or may not be introduced I suggested an alternative.

That is to clone the existing UDQ command to one that works off queries and not BO's. Remember I'm not wanting to allow the user to change selection criteria just what's displayed and how it is displayed. This is very important as the developer may be basing selection on user or system setup. Although this would allow the user to save their own format their are downsides:

It would not be saved at a user level and can be run and shared by anyone with the access. This is also a big downside on the existing Manage queries command as its purely based on access and not user login.
The UDQ's can only be accessed via the run UDQ command and so they are all bunched together and not placed at different points within the application menu.

So the UDQ is just a stop gap not the ideal which is to allow users to save their own formats on each standard query throughout the application.

I hope this explains it better.

Cheers Rod

nlarson

When I said UDF was a partial solution I meant the concept is right, but the current implementation does not work (at least for me). I hope this is similar to what you had in mind Rod:

Video: http://www.screencast.com/t/KAgcpbhLA8

In my expanded vision of Rod's idea, there are 4 Major concepts:

Apply UDQ concept to any form based query
Allow users to fully configure the grid display option
Allow reuse of both search and display configs (same as UDQ, but with new options)
Allow re-purposing a UDQ into a personalized layout/vp

For me this is all about personalization of the tools/data I have rights to as a user. Allowing for personalization gives power to both users and developers. It saves time in the creation process, and makes the solutions created more meaningful and more flexible. And these ideas apply to nearly any type of application, so I think this concept would be a good fit with Aware's core business.

aware_support

Thanks for the explanation. It does make it clearer and it does make sense.

RLJB

I am in agreement with Rod on this.

My users would very much like this ability, just the ability for them to "add" more columns (ie attributes) to the query (from a pre-set list made available by the configurator). This would mostly be used for them to export lists as a csv.

We are ALWAYS adding queries or adjusting the displayed attributes in queries because someone wants to export and do some analysis, or do a mail merge, or something else strange that we (as configurists didn't think of).

The added ability to save "views" would be "good" BUT I would guess many of our users would struggle to get their head around it, and I dread trying to support it - too many questions I suspect, so I would use it sparingly if at all.

aware_support

The features are now available in 5.2

nlarson

so awesome!

corradomatt

Thanks support for listening to the community and allowing us to help you improve your product. Keep it up!!