View Designer

View Designer is used to create both Views and Functions

Views are mainly used to return multiple rows (Dataset) in Tabular format for Reporting Purposes.

Functions typically return a single (Scalar) value and are used mainly in Expressions for calculating or for selecting values

Create View

Home >> Data Definition Layer >> Views >> New View

Define: View Name, Result Type = Dataset, Application, Module, Namespace

Save - then add a Description of this View’s purpose.

Parameters

The first step in creating a view is to Parameters - these can be Optional or Required. Parameters do not have to be defined, but they are recommended because they very easy to define and they are useful for filtering Views at Run-Time eg a Date Range.

Data Sources

Go to Designer Tab

At least One Data source must be added in left pane - these are Entities or other Views.

There is no problem in layering multiple views on top of each - in fact it is usually better to create multiple views rather than 1 giant view.

Views usually have several data sources and they are usually related to eachother by Joins - a join links sources using a common equal attribute - typically an ID eg Customer ID would be common to Invoice and Customer Entities.

Advanced - Joins can be Inner Outer Left and other comparison operators can be used such as more than.

Joins

To Add another Data - Source and Create a Join at the same time click on the join button

Joins are used to get to related information only available in other Entities or Views eg an Invoice Document might need a customer address that is not stored in an Invoice Entity but in an Address Entity.

Table

The Table Tab shows which columns will be output

In code mode Columns may be renamed here

Preview Tab for Testing

Views may be tested from this tab - this is slightly more convenient than Run View (see below)