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Whether the Phocas Implementations team designs your databases or you do it yourself, as time goes on, you might want to modify those designs to meet your business’s needs. It's not unusual to go back and make changes, either to add new elements, delete things that are no longer needed or simply make some changes to the name or order of the items.
In Designer, you can take the following actions:
Customize the database components - For example, you can change the name of a dimension, change the format of a measure or rearrange the order in which items display. There are a number of customization options available. Expand the sections below for information.
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Some changes you make in Designer can potentially affect dashboards, favorites and other items in Phocas that are connected to your database. For example, if you delete the Sales Rep dimension in Designer, this will result in a user's Sales Rep performance pie chart favorite to fail. Therefore, you should take particular care when deleting dimensions, properties, measures, streams and dates. Renaming items is fine. For example, if you rename the Sales Rep dimension, the user's Sales Rep performance pie chart favorite will still work. |
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You can rename dimensions, properties, measures and streams, to give a stream a more meaningful title. Notes:
Click the Edit button next to the item name, then enter a new title (name) and click Save. |
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You can set matrix mode column headings (known as 'captions' in the options menu on the grid) to default to name only. When you do so, users see only the name for the selected dimension and do not have the option of changing it, for example, to 'name and code' or just 'code', as the matrix captions option is disabled. Click the Edit button next to the dimension name, then select the Hide Code checkbox and click Save. |
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Setting a stream as Balance Brought Forward gives the transactions an opening balance plus movements. This is typical in a Financial database, where the value in a General Ledger account for a selected month is effectively the sum of all prior transactions. It is also useful with Inventory Movements databases, which also typically have an opening stock 'as set by a stocktake' and adjustments in and out for receipts and dispatches. Click the Edit button next to the stream name, then select the Balance Brought Forward checkbox and click Save. | |||||
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By default, the items within the dimensions, properties and measures and stream sections display in the order in which you map them. You can change this, to determine the order in which the items display in their respective menus in Phocas.
Click the item’s Move button, then drag and drop it in the new position. Image RemovedImage AddedFor example, in the image below, the Budget stream is being dragged from next to Sales across to the right of Orders. This sets it as the third stream in the list in the user's menu. You can also change the order in which items display in a dimension group (see section below). Note about Map charts The order in which properties are mapped, and their naming convention, will affect the results that users see when using the Map charts (Marker, Circle and Heat) feature in Analytics.
To test mappable properties enter the string into https://www.openstreetmap.org. |
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You have the option to change the data type of items in the dimensions, properties, measures and streams (and the date in some circumstances) database components. The data type options that are available depend on the component. Changing the data type is particularly helpful for classifying your properties, as the data type can make a difference to the way data can be used / analyzed / sorted in Phocas.
Note about boolean property type resultsThese are not case sensitive.
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If you have a large list of properties, you can group them by prefixing the property name with the group name, a dash and a right arrow (without spaces), like this: Name-> Click the Edit button next to the property name, then enter the group name prefix and click Save. For example, suppose you want to group the properties Street, Country and Postcode into a group named Address. After you add the prefix Address-> to the name of each property, users will see these properties grouped in the Property menu in Phocas. |
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Map dimension groupsYou can group your dimensions for analysis purposes. A group can be anything that works for your business, as long as the data exists. For example, you might want to group your:
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You can set a dimension as a property. Note that properties added this way will not display in the regular Properties section in Designer. After mapping a dimension group (see section above), click the Edit button next to the dimension name, then select the required property from the Include as Property dropdown list and click Save. The newly created property will be named as per the title. |
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You can set a format to determine how a measure will display by default in the Phocas. Users can overwrite this by their own measures.
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Often, your raw data will contain only basic measures, such as cost, value and so on. You can use these measures as the basis of a new 'calculated' measure, such as profit (value minus cost).
Note about measure titles for a Rebates source database If you are designing a source databases for use in Rebates (the database that Rebates will interrogate), there are some characters that must not be used in Measure names, as this can adversely affect rebates calculations. Measure names must only contain the following characters: "_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". Spaces cannot be used. |
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You can enable or disable period types for the database. If you created a new period type, it becomes available for selection in Designer, where you need to select it and rebuild the database for the new period type to be available in Phocas. Select a period type
Configure moving period count for each period typeYou can dictate how many moments constitute a moving period (as used in Use Moving mode). On a Month period type, this is typically 12 (the default), which will ultimately display what many refer to as a 'moving annual total'. However, you can select any value. For example, if you select 3, it makes the moving mode display rolling quarters instead of years. For period types other than month, 0 (zero) is the default. Note that in Moving mode, 0 does not mean 'none'. It is more like a starting point, as Moving mode takes the number of moments in your active period, counts back that many 'moving' moments and then adds those to each column. For example, a setting of 0 when using a period of Last 7 days displays rolling seven days but switching to a period of Last 30 days displays rolling 30 days. In the Period Types window, click the More button next to a period type, use the arrows to select the moving period count and click Save. Change the number of days to summarizeThe default number of days summarized in a database is 31. Sometimes you need a different number of days to be summarized, for example to:
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Setting a stream as Balance Brought Forward gives the transactions an opening balance plus movements. This is typical in a Financial database, where the value in a General Ledger account for a selected month is effectively the sum of all prior transactions. It is also useful with Inventory Movements databases, which also typically have an opening stock 'as set by a stocktake' and adjustments in and out for receipts and dispatches. Click the Edit button next to the stream name, then select the Balance Brought Forward checkbox and click Save. |
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You can use the synonyms option to customize the activity filter labels that appear in the Phocas grid. For example, in a Sales database you might prefer the labels Sales and No Sales to Activity and No activity, or in a Purchasing database you might want Purchases, No purchases and so on.
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You need to tell Designer which Retained Earnings account code you want to use for the purpose of calculating Retained Earnings for the Balance Sheet. When the database is being built, Designer uses the specified code to assign Retained Earnings to the correct place. If no code is specified, it creates its own code, called Retained Earnings. Only accounts within the Equity category will work.
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VideoDesign your own database (covers some of the actions outlined on this page) |