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  • How to save your searches

    Use Saved Searches to save your frequently used searches for easy use. Each user has their own set of saved searches. 1. Go to a search page 2. Click 'All Fields' 3. Enter the required search fields, then click Search 4. After the search results appear, a field and a Save New button represented by a floppy disc icon with an arrow appear next to the saved searches dropdown. Set the name of the saved search in the Save New field, and then click Save New. The name is saved in My Searches 5. To load your saved searches, select them from the My Searches dropdown menu and click the Load Icon. Then click Search to get your search results 6. When loaded, a Delete and Save As button appear. The delete button removes the search from the My Searches dropdown, and the Save As button can be used to save the searches under a different name and save any changes made to the search. Saved searches can also be accessed from the home screen by adding the search panels from the manage page layout screen in preferences.

  • How to create a Microsoft Reporting Services Report using your ChilliDB data

    If you would like to create your own reports in ChilliDB, you can use this article to step through creating a simple report against your ChilliDB database. Polymorphic Solutions recommend that you would benefit from going through some tutorials to learn more about the Report Builder software and then use guides like this to help you connect to your ChilliDB database. Report builder can be downloaded from the following page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53613 If you decide that you do not want to learn to write your own reports, Polymorphic Solutions can develop report templates for you using helpdesk support hours. When ChilliDB was installed, a member of your organisation would have received an email with a subject of either “ChilliDB Installation Complete” or “ChilliDB for Divisions Installation Complete”. Some older installations may have referred to “ChilliDB for Divisions” as “Division Information System”. This email is important as it includes information for your Report Writer (for the ChilliDB website and reporting help), your Systems Administrator (for backups), and your key user (for the ChilliDB website, and lodging support requests). The following are examples of part of the content from that email which deals with the Report Writer information – some parts of your email of course will be different; however the email will have your information in it. Getting started, identifying the ChilliDB data There is a special document which will identify all of the database views which make the data available for report writers in an easy to use and understand format. It will identify how to link the views together to join the related information so for example, you may select basic information about a Contact such as their Name, Gender, and then also include information about their Organisations, their Address and Communication details. This document is called the Reporting Interface Database Layer, or Reporting Interface document for short - obtain a copy from the article listing located on the ChilliDB Helpdesk. In the next sections of this document, you will step through the process of connecting to a ChilliDB database, selecting some Contact data for reporting on, and then the creation of a sample report in Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder. Once you have created your report, this document will also step you through uploading this report into ChilliDB to share with other users. Finally, you should also review the tips in the Report Writing Tips section of this document which will help you to produce great reports. Creating a Report 1. Open Report Builder and then select File menu > New > Blank Report. 2. You need to choose a data source. On the left side of the screen there is a Report Data section containing a list of folders. Right click the ‘Data Sources’ folder to add one. Give your data source an appropriate name, select the embedded connection option then ‘Microsoft SQL Server from the dropdown. Click Build to continue. 3. Using the information described at the top of this document (i.e. from the email it discusses), fill out the connection details for Server (the SQL Server Name), User Id (the SQL Server Login), Password (the SQL Server Password), and Database (the SQL Server Database). In the following image (Figure 6). Click OK to complete this process, and the popup will close itself. 4. Now you need to build your query by creating a dataset. Right click the Dataset folder on the left side of the screen to begin. Give your dataset an appropriate name, select the data source created earlier from the 'Data source' dropdown and click Query Designer to continue 5. The Query designer window lets you choose the views you want to include in your report, specify the relationships, and add any filters if necessary. The views are located to the left in the ‘Database view’ section, and as you add views the fields available appear in the ‘Selected fields’ section. Relationships are specified below this, all of your views must be related before you can save your query. Turn ‘Auto Detect’ off and add the links manually as it is usually not correct and can lead to missing or incorrect data. 6. The Dataset folder located to the left of your screen will contain your new dataset once it has been created. Expand it to show the list of fields. 7. Data can be displayed inside a Table, Matrix or a List. These are found in the Insert menu. Data can also be displayed in the body of the report however only the first instance of the field can be shown if placed inside the body. 8. Parameters can be added by right clicking the ‘Parameters’ folder in the Report data section. 9. More information about designing reports can be found here https://docs.microsoft.com/enus/sql/reporting-services/report-design Uploading the Report into ChilliDB To share this report with other ChilliDB users, you need to make some changes to it then upload the report into ChilliDB. 1. Go back and edit your data source and set the connection string to: ="Data Source=" & Parameters!ServerName.Value & ";initial catalog=" & Parameters!DatabaseName.Value 2. Create 2 new hidden parameters. Please ensure that these 2 parameters are the top 2 items in the parameter list. They must have the following names: ServerName DatabaseName ChilliDB will pass the server name and database name into these parameters when loading the report. 3. To share this report with other users of ChilliDB, login to ChilliDB and navigate to the Reports menu > select Upload > select the Find link produce a window which will let browse for your report. After selecting a report, click the Upload button to upload the report into ChilliDB. 4. Select a Report Type to classify this report. You may add additional Report Type values through the Reference Table Manager within ChilliDB, where you would add items to the Report Categorisation table 5. Give the report a title and description then click Save to complete this process, and you then will see your report within ChilliDB. Uploading Integrated Reports into ChilliDB In addition to uploading reports to the report screen, reports can be integrated into a selection of other screens instead. The reports are accessed from the screen’s action tab. To integrate your report into a screen, a parameter with the appropriate parameter name needs to be created in the report. When the report is accessed, the screen will supply the ID to the parameter so the report can display data relevant to the page being viewed. Report Writing TipsThe following tips will answer frequently asked questions and provide some expert tips to assist you with your report writing. Database Connections – Creating: Reports should be written using Microsoft SQL Server to connect to your SQL Server Polymorphic Solutions Reporting Views - Polymorphic Solutions provide a reporting layer to our database using Database Views. Our reporting views are prefixed with rpt_. Creating your own Customised Views: When the Polymorphic Solutions Reporting Views aren’t sufficient for your needs, you may choose to create custom database views, tables, or stored procedures (collectively referred to as Database Objects) within your database. To ensure that updates to the system do not overwrite your customised database objects, Polymorphic Solutions recommends that you prefix your custom Database Objects with a prefix. We recommend using your organisation prefix. For example a view showing Contacts in Brisbane for a company called ACME Inc would use create a view named acme_Contacts_In_Brisbane. The rpt prefix is reserved and should not be used for your custom reporting views. Automatic View Generation – Custom Fields automatically generates Reporting Views for each Section of Custom Fields. Renaming Custom Field Sections and Items – if you notice that a report no longer works and you then load it into Report builder and it informs you that a field cannot be found, it is because the field may have been renamed within ChilliDB by one of your users. You should correct the report and then upload it back into ChilliDB. Report Branding – Using information from the Report branding view to display your company details will allow you to easily share your reports with other ChilliDB users in the community. You can configure the information displayed in this view by selecting Reports > Report Branding from the ChilliDB menu. From that screen you configure your display name, address details, privacy or confidentiality statement and even upload your organisation logo image to be included in your reports. Modifying or Copying Polymorphic Solutions Reports: You are free to modify the Polymorphic Solutions reports and customise them to suit your needs. To avoid them being overwritten, you should make a copy and give them a different name. Filtering out Expired records: ChilliDB records a date in the Expired field of Contacts and Organisations reporting views as a datetime value, meaning if a datetime is present, that record is expired. If it is not expired, it be NULL. Example formulas for Contacts and Organisations would be: o IIF(IsNothing(Fields!rpt_Contact_Expired.Value),True,False) for Contacts, o IIF(IsNothing (Fields!rpt_Organisations_Expired.Value),True,False) for Organisations Date Time Values are stored in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) time: ChilliDB stores database date time data in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and displays the date and time in localised time through the web application. All rpt_ reporting views automatically convert the GMT date time values to localised date time values for you. Training Options You may want to take a look at some of these resources to learn more about Report Builder https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/report-design

  • Staff Tracking

    The staff tracking feature lets you see which member's of staff are available, when they are due back, and any comments they have left. It is a panel which can by added to your dashboard from preferences > manage screen layout From here drag the panel out of the hidden panels section into any of the visible sections. I have placed mine in the bottom visible panels section. Make sure your users have the corrects tickets so they can view staff tracking and edit it if needed. To hide users from staff tracking, edit the user from system > users > maintain users, then select the user you want to hide and edit their 'staff tracking' field. The field defaults to 'User Will Appear'. You can set the field to 'User Will Appear' or 'User Will Not Appear' depending on your preference.

  • ChilliDB Integration Services API

    ChilliDB Integration Services is the name given to a set of XML based Web Services which facilitate integration and data exchange between ChilliDB and software solutions developed both by Polymorphic Solutions and third parties. The documentation for the API can be found here. This document will provide an API (Application Programming Interface) reference to aid developers in utilising ChilliDB Integration Services including details about the arguments and responses for each method.

  • Saving, Replacing or Uploading a report into ChilliDB

    ChilliDB allows you to save an existing Report File as a template which you can then either edit in Crystal Reports yourself, or attach it to a HelpDesk ticket and ask the ChilliDB HelpDesk to make changes to your report for you. Saving a Report To save a Report from ChilliDB, navigate to the Reports menu > Display. Find the report you are looking for and choose the Save Template link. This will download the report to your PC. Replacing a Report Later when you can replace the file in your ChilliDB by navigating to the Reports menu > Display. Find the report you are looking for and choose the Manage Report link. This will take you to the edit screen for that that report where you can upload a new report file. If the report you wish to replace is a System Managed report (i.e. Shipped with ChilliDB), then you can only Expire that Report and then upload your new copy of the report through Reports menu > Upload. Uploading a Report You can upload a report file into ChilliDB through the Reports menu > Upload. From this screen, you can: Categorise your report Browse for your report ChilliDB is able to extract the Title and Comments from the file properties of the report you are uploading (if present). Selecting the button "Read Title and Description from the Report File" will try and obtain that meta data from the file. If present, it will populate the Report Title and Report Description field on the Upload page for you. Choose if the report is accessed from the Report Listing or Integrated into another screen. When Integrated is chosen, you will be asked to choose which screen. See the article about Integrated Reports for further information on Integrated Reports.

  • How can I secure Report Access to different Users?

    Sometimes you want to secure certain Reports to only certain Users or Roles of Users. ChilliDB allows you to do this through Report Security, which you find under the Reports menu, the menu item is called Report Security. Report Security allows you to configure Report Types to certain User Roles. By default in ChilliDB, all Report Types are visible to all User Roles. When you start securing reports, you need to then review and likely set permissions for every Report Type. You do this by selecting each Type from the Drop Down List, then you can uncheck the "All Roles" checkbox and choose zero, one or more User Roles who can see reports of that Type. Work through all Types in your System setting permissions.

  • How to backup and restore your data

    Backups of your system are automatically created nightly, and stored on ChilliDB's secure servers. If you would like to request a new backup, you must request it via the HelpDesk and give the ChilliDB staff at least 3 hours notice to create it. They will then complete it as soon as possible and store it on their secure servers. Please note that backup data is removed after 72 hours. To restore your data from a backup, send a request via the HelpDesk and the ChilliDB staff will do this for you. It will be completed either before or after working hours as no users can be using the system while the data is restoring from the backup. You will lose any new data created after the backup was made, so make sure you are prepared for that before performing the restore.

  • How do I know what version of ChilliDB I am running?

    The version of ChilliDB that your system is running can be found at the footer of each and every screen in ChilliDB if you are using version 3.2.4.36 or earlier. On newer versions you can see this information on the login screen. For example: © ChilliDB :: © Polymorphic Solutions :: 29 May 2014 :: 3.1 :: About This would indicate that you are running version 3.1 dated 29 May 2014 You can compare the version of ChilliDB you are running with those available from the RELEASES menu in ChilliDB HelpDesk to see if you are running the latest version. If you would like an upgrade, raise a ticket requesting your system be upgraded. If you run ChilliDB on your own servers, you can obtain the latest upgrade packages from the RELEASES menu in ChilliDB HelpDesk.

  • Expiring Vs Deleting Data

    In many areas of ChilliDB such as custom fields, contacts, organisations, and most other modules, we provide the expire concept. Expiring data is a way to effectively delete something but with the option to bring it back again if needed. Deleting data permanently deletes it from ChilliDB. An expired contact for example is hidden from the system like they are deleted but they can be viewed from the search if filtering for expired contacts, and be unexpired if needed. If you are unable to see the expire option for a record, please check your user role tickets using System > Users > Maintain Roles + Tickets, or contact your system administrator if you don't have access to the Users menu. Most areas of ChilliDB don't provide a delete function, if you would like to delete something but are unable to do it yourself, we can do so using helpdesk support hours.

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