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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 cause 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.

After you modify a database, you need to save and rebuild the database to apply your changes.

In measures, if you are designing a source database for use in Rebates (the database that Rebates will interrogate), some characters must not be used in Measure names, as this can adversely affect rebate calculations. Measure names must only contain the following characters: "_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". Spaces cannot be used.

Watch the Design your own database video from 2:13 to 2:17 for a demonstration.

The order in which properties are mapped, and their naming convention, affects the results that users see when using the Map charts (Marker, Circle, and Heat) feature in Analytics. 

• Country AUS does not map. Use AU or Australia.

• Use Due date not Date due.

To test mappable properties enter the string into https://www.openstreetmap.org.

These are not case-sensitive.

Set matrix mode column headings (known as captions in the options menu on the grid) to default to name only, so users only see the name for the selected dimension. As the code caption is unavailable, users don’t have the option of changing it, for example, to name and code or just code.

In the Dimensions section, click the Edit button next to the dimension name, then select the Hide Code checkbox and click Save.

The following information is for adding groups in Designer. You can also add and manage dimension groups in your Financial Statements module.

Put your dimensions into groups 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 customers into regions or types, or even by which sales rep looks after them.

• Group products by category and sub category.  

1. In the Dimensions section, click the mapped dimension. The Design tab changes from the default Stream mode into Dimension Mode, where you can arrange your dimensions into groups.

2. Drag the relevant raw data file from the data sources panel into the Drag here box.

3. Map the data file:

   1. A data box displays to the left of the raw data with a red heading. This represents the data you've already mapped. You need to link your raw data to it. Locate the column that has the matching data and drag it across. The column heading will turn green.

   2. To create a dimension group, drag the raw data column on top of the appropriate dimension. For example, drag the Minor Section data file on top of the Product Dimension. It will then appear below, grouped.

      

4. Reorder the dimensions in the group, if required:

   1. Select the relevant dimension. The data files display from left to right across the screen and this determines the order in which they are processed during a database build.

   2. Drag the data files to change their position.

   

5. Exit Dimension Mode and return to Stream mode: either click the dimension again or click on any blank space in the dimension box.  

Set a dimension as a property. This dimension property is different from and independent of the transaction properties that you map to the database, so they do 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 dimension title.

Determine the default format of a measure that users see when they open the database. Users can overwrite this by customizing the format of their own measures.

1. In the Measures section, click the Edit button next to the measure name, then select the required format list.

2. Either select an option from the Formatting dropdown list or select the Custom option and enter your own format.

3. Use the arrows to move to the settings for the next measure, if required.

4. Click Save.

   

   For example, if you want negative values have brackets, you can - can we add this screenshot or something similar to the formatting measures doco as an example

Often, raw data contains 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).

1. In the Measures section, click the green plus button.

2. Enter a title (name) for the new measure.
   Note: If you are designing a source database for use in Rebates (the database that Rebates will interrogate), some characters must not be used in measure names, as this can adversely affect rebate calculations. Measure names must only contain the following characters: "_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz". Spaces cannot be used.

3. Enter a mathematical calculation using your existing measures. You can use the usual notation (+,-,*,/), and any of the other non-calculated measures in your expression. 

4. Set the data formatting, if required.

5. Click Save.

   

When you create a new database, the default period types (Year, Month and Day) are automatically selected for you. You might want to remove one of these period types or add others. Over time, as your needs change, you can review this list and change the period types that are available to users.

If you create a new period type, for the new period type to be available to users, you need to add it to the database, then rebuild the database.    

1. In the Date section, click the Edit button at the top.

2. In the Period Types window, select the checkboxes of the period types you want to make available in the database. Clear the checkboxes of any period types you do not want.

3. Configure the moving period count for each period type if required (see next section below).

4. Click Save.

   

Set 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 moving periods 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 the Last 7 days displays rolling 7 days but switching to a period of the Last 30 days displays rolling 30 days.

1. In the Date section, click the Edit button at the top.

2. In the Period Types window, select the period type and click the More button.

3. Use the arrows to set the moving period count and click Save.

   

The default number of days summarized in a database is 31. Sometimes you need a different number of days to be summarized, for example:

• To compare daily month-to-date with the daily month-to-date previous year.

• To compare a 3-month daily breakdown with the same period last year.

This setting cannot be blank. If you select zero, Phocas summarizes all available days. This is not a common setting but it can be useful, for example, if you want to compare a daily month-to-date with a daily month-to-date four years ago. If you do select zero, the build will take longer than usual.

1. In the Date section, click the Edit button at the top.

2. In the Period Types window, select Day and click the More button. Unless it has been previously changed, the number of days to summarize will be set at the last 31 days.

3. Use the arrows to select a new number of days to summarize and click Save.