The Entities form consists of many sections. The main section (the top panel of the Entity form) handles the identification, the database location, and the base view assignment of an entity.

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Top Panel

Name (Required)

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If you want to localize this entity name on a user-by-user basis (based on a user's assigned Culture), specify a Culture Strings record in this field. See Using Localization for Administration for details.

BaseDSN (Required)

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The base view is the default view used to view entity records. Note that for new entities, this field is a text box. It becomes a link box that links to a corresponding Database Objects record after you save the Entities record.

Generate Table

This option indicates that the Aptify automatically generates the SQL table, views, and stored procedures upon the initial creation of an entity. This option greatly reduces the amount of manual work that must be done when creating or modifying entity field information. . This option should be cleared for virtual entities.

Is Installed 

Selecting this option specifies that the entity is considered installed and available for use to those who have sufficient permissions. who have sufficient permissions. 

Is Virtual Entity

This option, added in Aptify 5.5.1, indicates that the entity is a virtual entity. See Using Virtual Entity Wizard for more information on virtual entities.

Applications Tab

The Applications tab determines under which Application headings the entity appears. In the following example, the Dashboards entity is a service under the Aptify Framework Administration application heading.

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The Actions sub-tab lists all associated Entity Actions sub-type records for the entity. An action corresponds to a wizard. See See About the Entity Actions Form.

Attributes Sub-Tab

The Attributes sub-tab lists all Entity Attributes sub-type records for the entity. Administrators can use attributes to enable additional functionality in an entity. See See About the Entity Attributes Form.

Filter Relationships Sub-Tab

The Filter Relationships sub-tab on the Configuration tab stores all associations between this entity and other entities that are set up for viewing purposes. These relationships allow a view on the current entity to be filtered using data in another entity. See See About the Filter Relationships Form.

General Sub-Tab

The General sub-tab on the Configuration tab provides an interface for configuring entity behavior, such as whether Record History, Require Comments for each Save, and Recordset Query Limitation are enabled or disabled.

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This field specifies the filegroup for the entity's base table. See Creating Multiple Filegroups for  for more information about using multiple file groups.

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This field specifies the filegroup in which the entity's large text and image are managed. If the entity contains a field or fields with the SQL Data Type of ncharvar(max), varchar(max), ntext, or text, this field is enabled and a filegroup can be selected to manage text and image fields. See See Creating Multiple Filegroups for more information about using additional filegroups.

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This field specifies the type of view that loads by default when creating new views in this entity. This setting does not prevent a user from selecting a different view type within the Create View dialog. The list of available View Types is based on the records in the View Types entity. With Aptify , there are six View Types available: List, Chart, Calendar, Pivot Table, Map, and Gantt. If this field is blank, the system uses the List view type as the default.

See Using the Viewing System Viewing System chapter in the Aptify User Guide for  for information on how to create views.

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This field links to the Form Template service and identifies the form template that appears as the preview pane for list views of this entity's records. See Specifying a Default List View Preview Pane and the Viewing System: List Views Viewing System: List Views chapter in the Aptify User Guide for  for information on this feature.

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If the entity is a sub-type entity, this field specifies the order in which records are sorted within a sub-type grid. Note that this field is not visible for top-level entities. See Defining the Sort Order for Sub-Type Listings for  for more details.

Track Versions

If this option is selected, record history for this entity's records is enabled. See Enabling and Disabling Record History for  for details.

Require Comments for Each Save

If this option is selected, users are required to enter comments for each record in this entity before allowing the record to be saved. See Requiring Comments on Save for  for details.

Enable Recordset Query Limitation

If this option is selected, Aptify limits the number of records that can appear in a view based on the user's permissions. See Managing the Recordset Query Limitation for  for details.

Allow Record History Restore

If this option is selected, users are allowed to restore previous versions of a record. Note that the Allow Record History Restore option is not applicable when the Track Versions option is clear. See Enabling and Disabling Record History for  for details.

Enable Viewer

This functionality is not currently implemented. If this option is selected, the viewer form is displayed to the user.

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When selected, this entity's records can appear in the Most Recently Used record list within a dashboard. See the Desktop The Aptify Desktop chapter in the Aptify User Guide for Configuring the Most Recently Used Records Component for information on the Most Recently Used feature.

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When selected, additional fields display that let you specify the font and color to use for required fields in this entity. The selections here override the value specified at the global level (in Startup.exe.config). See Configuring the Appearance of Required Fields for  for details.

Required Entities Sub-Tab

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The concept of entity dependency also affects how entities are packed and unpacked for future importing and exporting of entities. Since dependent entities share common fields with each other, the layout of the database schema on the backend aspect of Aptify forces entity integrity even if no records exist for any of the services. See Using the Entity Packing and Unpacking for Wizards for more information on the Entity Packer.

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The Constraints tab lists any table-level Check Constraints that an administrator has added for the entity. The constraints on this tab drive down to the database level and ensure consistency for records in the entity's database table. See See About the Entity Constraints Form for more information.

DB Objects Tab

All views and stored procedures that are used within Aptify exist as Database Objects. From the DB Objects tab in the Entities service, an administrator can link Database Objects records with an entity. Note that although the Stored Procedures tab on the Entities record lists only seven stored procedures for an entity, the DB Objects tab allows for any number of views, stored procedures, and triggers to be related to an entity.

See Creating Database Objects Service for  for more information.

Details Tab

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This field identifies the type of replication that this entity supports. The options are None, Snapshot, Merge, and Snapshot and Merge. This field is reserved for future use. See the Aptify Replication Guide for more information.

Help Text

This field is reserved for future use.

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For example, when a user clicks the Help button on a Lists record, the Aptify online help window appears and displays the Lists section from the Aptify User Guidetopic.

Help Object

This field specifies the Object Repository location of a Microsoft CHM Help file that contains information about this entity. This field is used in conjunction with Help URL to specify a particular page in an online help file that should open when a user clicks the Help button on this entity's form.

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The Fields tab displays all of the data elements that must be stored for the entity. Within the tab is a sub-type view that shows all of the Fields records currently associated with the entity, along with the current state of each given field. See See About the Fields Form for more information.

Form Templates Tab

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In the Entities service, single-field indexes are created through the Fields tab. However, to create composite indexes built on two or more fields, administrators add index entries to the Indexes tab. This tab lists all Indexes records associated with the entity. See the entity. See About the Indexes Form.

Note that this tab is not available for sub-types.

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Typical plug-ins include a specialized form (Viewer plug-in), business logic (Entity plug-in), duplicate record checking process (Duplicate Check type), context menu (Extension plug-in), record verification process (Verification plug-in), Find dialog (Find plug-in), and merging logic (Merge plug-in).

See About the Plug Ins Form for more information.

Reports Tab

This tab lists all Reports associated with an entity. An administrator can add new reports to an entity's Report wizard from this tab. Note that reports are stored in the Object Repository; records in the Reports tab point to the report's file in the repository. See See About the Reports Form.

Note that this tab is not available for sub-types.

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Note that the Row Set Security configuration option is only applicable to entities that have a generated base view.

See Managing Row Set Security for  for details.

Security Tab

Aptify security is administered from the Security tab of the entities form. This tab consists of five other tabs: the Group Permissions tab, the User Permissions tab, the Group Attachment Permissions tab, the User Attachment Permissions tab, and Options.

See Entity Level Security for Granting Entity Permissions to Groups and Granting Entity Permissions to Users for more information on assigning user and group permissions to an entity. See Attachment Modifying Security Settings for Attachments for information on defining attachment permissions at the entity level. See Modifying Security Settings for In Place Editing Security for  for information on the In Place Editing option, and see Managing Field Level Security for Settings for information on the Field Level Security options.

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Stored procedures are the procedural processes that Aptify uses to conduct routine database transactions onto a SQL Server. From the Stored Procedures tab, these processes are linked to existing Database

Object records. Database Objects in Aptify represent individual views and stored procedures within the SQL Server. See Creating Database Objects Service for  for more information.

During the creation of an Aptify top-level entity, the following stored procedures are automatically generated:

• spGet[EntityName]
  • For example, spGetDashboards
     
• spCreate[EntityName]
  • For example, spCreateDashboards
     
• spUpdate[EntityName]
  • For example, spUpdateDashboards
     
• spDelete[EntityName]
  • For example, spDeleteDashboards

These four stored procedures are used to retrieve entity record information, create an entity record, update an entity record, or delete an entity record. For custom implementations, developer-defined stored procedures are used instead of the default stored procedures mentioned above.

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This field is not available for sub-type entities.

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_spGetDependants _spGetDependants

spGetDependants

The Aptify framework allows system architects to explicitly link entity fields to fields in related entities. For example, the CompanyID field in the Persons entity links to the ID field of the Companies entity. This link establishes a dependency between the Companies and Persons entities.

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• When an existing Entities record is saved with a change that causes entity regeneration, the system regenerates that entity's spGetDependant stored procedure.
• When a new Entities record is saved and the new entity links to an existing entity, the system also regenerates the existing Entities record's spGetDependant stored procedure so it searches for dependencies with the new entity.
• When an existing Entities record that links to another entity is saved with a change that causes entity regeneration, then the system also regenerates the linked entity's spGetDependant stored procedure.

The Aptify Merge functionality allows a user to merge two or more records in the same entity. Dependencies are automatically resolved using the default logic in the system-generated spGetDependants stored procedure that is sufficient in the vast majority of situations. However, if the situation requires different logic, a client-specific Get Dependants stored procedure may be specified. The client-specific stored procedure either modifies or supplements the default logic used to retrieve dependencies for a given record.

This field is not available for sub-type entities.

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New entities created from the Sub-Types tab of the Entity service use the same form and process as normal entity creation. What differentiates sub-type entities from their parent entities is simply the information in the title bar. In the example below, the title bar indicates that this entity is a sub-type of the Culture Strings entity.

See Creating Multiple Filegroups for  for more information on sub-types.

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The Web tab on an Entities record is reserved for future use.

It allows an entity to be set up with the Aptify WebAccess application. The Aptify WebAccess application is Aptify's browser-based front end interface. Note that WebAccess functionality is not available in the initial Aptify release.

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