Index of this page:
Attribute administration window
Attribute configuration window
Contents related to the help
() What are the CIF-KM smart boxes
() Examples of types of CIF-KM smart boxes
() Template
Introduction
In CIF-KM all the information is distributed in “smart box“. A “smart box” may be thought of as a container of documentation and information, classified by and qualified with attributes, links, permissions, scheduled notifications, etc. It is available to one or several users who, according to their respective permissions over the specific element, may consult, download contents, modify them, eliminate them and work on them in general with the required level of confidentiality. The attributes are one of the means to qualify and/or classify the “smart box“.
The administration of the attributes corresponds to the users who have the faculty “administration of attributes” marked in their user role.
In the window of each attribute, one indicates which groups of users may view and, if necessary, use the attribute created. In the “smart box“ can be established the conditions for the modification of the values of the attributes, depending on what has been defined in the “smart box” template and on the“smart box” role that has been assigned to the group of users that allows access to the“smart box“.
The attributes are entered, either in specific boxes that are shown in the data area of the “smartbox”, or in its attributes section.
- The attributes are data and values that the users incorporate in the“smart box“to qualify, define or classify them, and in the search forms as filters to delimit or identify that which one is searching for.
- For each type of attribute, for example, an attribute of type registry, one may carry out several different configurations of it. Each of these attribute configurations is identified with a name and is associated to one or several groups of users. Only the members of this/these group(s) may view it in the templates, “smart box“, etc. Thus, for example, the CIF-KM administrator may have created an attribute of type register for the sales area and another of the same type for the administrative area, and each one will contain the values of the registers of the corresponding area.
- Once an attribute has been created, the users with the faculty of creating templates in their user role (normally this will only be in the administrator role) will be able to incorporate it to any “smart box” template to qualify them and of any predefined search so that they may serve as filters, though he must ensure that the groups of users that use these templates may also view the attribute in the corresponding “smart box” or default search.
In the example of the point above, a possible error would be that in a“smart box“ template configured and available, for example, to the user group of the “sales area” is incorporated the attribute of type register which is available to the group of users of the “administration area”. In this case, the users of the “sales area” that use the template to create “smart box” would not be able to see the box of the attribute of type register, since it would be linked to another group of users.
Thus, if a certain attribute needs to be available to all the users of a company, this will be linked to to a group of users that contains all the users of the company.
The system only allows one to eliminate an attribute if it isn´t applied to any“smart box” or predefined search.
Types of attribute
With each type of attribute one may create multiple attribute tabs, each one with a name that identifies it, that are linked to one or several groups of users whose members may view and use the attribute.
The types of attribute that appear in the standard version are the following:
- Short text. attribute of text type, limited to 255 characters, that doesn´t allow for line jumps.
- Multiline text: attribute of text type, without a limit and with line jumps.
- Whole number: only admits whole numbers as values.
- Number with decimals: allows decimal numbers as values.
- Category: attribute that allows one to represent a tree of labels, to use as a classification. Thanks to its tree structure, it allows one to define a hierarchy of values, and later, in searches, find any value, searching by the actual value or by some of its parents, for example:”Europe->Spain->Madrid” when searching for ”Spain” will offer us as a result, all that is classified as “Spain” and all that is classified with any of its dependant values, such as “Madrid”.
- List of values: attribute that allows one to represent a list of values, where each value may contain a text, an icon and a color (these last two are optional). It is used for classification purposes.
- Date: date attribute.
- Date and time: allows one to classify a date and a time.
- External datum: attribute that allows one to access external data bases to run searches and save a related datum, for example, accessing an external data base and saving a client code, allowing us to search by the name of the client.
- True or false: will only allow us to select between two values, in the “smartbox” it will displayed as a validation box (yes or no).
- Register: attribute that allows one to generate register numbers, depending on the configuration in the register mask, allows one to control numerical counters with restarts on fixed dates (annual restart, for example). These numbers are generated by the system and don´t allow for editing on the user´s part.
- Email: attribute of text type, that allows one to store an email address and that will be shown in the element with a button to send an email to the address entered.
- Web page: attribute of text type, that allows one to store a Web address and that will be displayed in the element with a button to open the web address in the predetermined navigator.
Attribute administration window
The CIF-KM administrators may access the administration of attributes from the submenu Administration/administration of attributes of the floating icon.
The window of attribute administration shows a list of the different configurations of attributes already created and allows one to modify them or create other new ones.
Presents two sections that allow one to run different types of attribute searches:
1.- Data filter section: Search for attributes by name or type. This is the tab that can be seen in the figure.
2.- Group filter section: This tab can´t be seen in the figure. The rapid user group search engine is used to specify the group or groups with which the attribute configuration is linked. This is of interest in large companies where there are multiple configurations of attributes whose names may be similar without repeating themselves. Selecting the group(s) one clicks on “Search” to run the search for configurations of attributes linked to the groups.
3.- List of attributes already configured together with their type shown in the column on the right.
Attribute configuration window
Pressing on the button New of the attribute administration window one can configure new attributes.
Double clicking over an already created attribute in the list, or with the right mouse button menu over one of them the attribute configuration window is opened.
1.- Select the type of attribute. The drop down is opened or one selects the appropriate one.
2.- Name of the attribute. This is the identifier of the attribute to be configured.
3.- Drop down of types of attributes.
4.- Groups associated with the attribute. An attribute has a list of groups of users whose members may view and apply data and values in it. For example, we may have a set of attributes for the users of an area of the company. There may exist other configured attributes of the same type of attribute for other groups of users.
One may use the rapid user and group search to add groups of users to the list of groups of the attribute.
5.- Configuration section of the attribute. In the figure is shown the configuration of an attribute of type category tree.
6.- Configuration area of the attribute. It appears when one selects one of the 5 sections above. This section depends on the type of attribute selected. Next we explain those that are most singular:
- Category tree section: Allows one to configure a hierarchical tree structure with different values that the attribute may take.
- List of values section: Allows one to define the plain list of values that the attribute may take apart from indicating a color that will represent it or assigning an icon to each value (for example, flags in a list of countries, or different colors for the values of an attribute that determine the state of execution of a matter).
- External datum section: Allows one to create a connection to an external data base, so that when this attribute is used, a search may be displayed to obtain the values from the external data base. To establish the connection, you will have to define the following parameters: – Connection chain: Define the type of data base to which one will connect and its location. Pressing on the the three dots button a window will open with the properties of the links where one will specify in the first tab the connection provider and in the second the path and username and password of the data base. -Table: Displaying this field a list is shown with all the tables of the data base defined. Select from which table the data will be imported. -Key field and visible field: define which fields of the table will be the key field and key visible. -Results field: select the fields from which the data will be imported. -Search fields: definition of the fileds thanks to which one will be able to search for the values of the attribute. -Result: format that the resulting data will have.
- Registration mask section: Allows one to assign a number, series, etc (counter type) and thus identify uniquely and unambiguously each element registered. The mask has to be configured. With the three dots button one can define the format of the mask. In the window “format” the parts of the mask will be defined according to the order in which we would like them to appear. The system allows one to add to the mask a fixed text section, a date section and a counter.
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