What do each of the columns in the Links
table represent?
The links that appear in the rows of the table are the links that currently
exist in the data model. The 'Primary' and 'Foreign' are the primary and
foreign keys between the tables. These links were also the determinates for the
depth of the search from the first step in the Form Builder. In some cases, the
user may choose to ignore certain links because of the irrelevance to the
desired results. By choosing 'Ignore' as opposed to 'Full', the link will not
be considered and the form and resulting queries will disregard the relationship.
In addition, the form provides drop-down menus for artificially creating links
in the customized form. This allows the user to add a relationship constraint
that may not be include in the data model. NOTE: This only affects the created
form. It does not change of the data model or any other forms created on these
tables.
IMPORTANT: If more than one table is selected, each table must be
involved in at least one link. Violation of this rule will result in poor and,
most likely, impossible results.
What is a filter and why are there so many
fields?
A filter allows the user to make an easy adjustment to the query that will
respond with specific information. This option allows the user to specify a
field and several values that may be in that field, which will allow the
form user to restrict the results to those values checked or entered into the
input text boxes. For example, entering the title as 'Departure Airports' and
using the corresponding field, the '=' operator, and the values, 'LAX, JFK, IAD',
yields the following output on the created form:
SUGGESTION: Include a DESCRIPTIVE title, since the field will not be displayed
What is an 'OR' filter?
An 'OR' filter allows the user to make an easy adjustment to the query that will
respond with specific information. This option allows the user to specify that
two fields are equal to (or other operator relationshipto ) a single value. The
principle difference between this filter and the standard Filter is the standard
filter allows for a single field to equal two or more values whereas the 'OR'
filter allows two fields to equal one value. For example, entering the title as 'Departure
or Arrival Airport is' and using the corresponding fields, the '=' operators, and
the values, 'LAX, JFK, IAD', yields the following output on the created form,
which allows the form user to restrict the query results to those records where
the arrival or departure airport is one of the values listed, or as entered into
the text input box. An example:
SUGGESTION: Include a DESCRIPTIVE title, since the fields will not be displayed
What does it mean to 'Pivot Results'?
The Pivot Results option transforms the results into a spreadsheet-like view.
In many cases, it is good database design to have a table in which one
column is an entity identifier, another column indicates a type of annotation
that pertains to that object, and a third column is the value of that annotation.
For example, a database for a customer survey might have a table of the form
Survey(customer_id, question, response)
. This design allows new questions
to be added easily, and allows for easier aggregation. However, many users want to
view the data as a spreadsheet with one row for each object and one column for each
annotation. Continuing the example, the survey needs to be transformed into a table
of the form Questions(customer_id, question1, question2, ..., questionN)
.
The Pivot Results option lets the form designer indicate which column of a query corresponds
to the entitiy identifier (e.g., the customer_id), which corresponds to the attribute
identifier (e.g., the question), and which to the value (e.g., the response). Two key
assumptions are made. First, all three fields must originate from the same underlying
table. Second, the entity identifier must functionally determine the remaining columns.
This allows, for example, one to join the Survey relation with the Customer relation to link
in demographic data.