Virtual Info Areas in Aurea CRM.Web

Search&List, SearchSubList, ListView Widget

The Search&List configuration defined in the Search action is applied as follows:

• If the Search&List configuration for a virtual info area is defined, only the records matching the respective filter criteria are displayed. Thus virtual info areas can be used instead of fixed filters.
• If the Search&List configuration for a physical info area is defined, all records of that info area are displayed regardless of whether they match a criterion of a virtual info area or not.

Example: A virtual info area VHOS for companies (FI) that are hospitals is defined. Searching in VHOS returns only hospitals, while searching in FI returns all company records, regardless of whether these are doctors, hospitals etc.

Context Menu

The context menu of the list is either the menu explicitly defined in the Search&List configuration (e.g. M_Company) or the default menu matching the info area of the record. For further details, see Search&List Configuration.

If "Default" is defined for the menu in the Search&List configuration, the context menu for lists and sub-lists is determined according to the defined virtualInfoAreaReadMode. For further details, see virtualInfoAreaReadMode.

The context menu displayed for records in SearchSubLists is determined as follows:

1. The SearchSubList header contains SubListParams for all defined sub-info areas. The SubListParam virtualInfoArea.ReadMode defines the behavior of the context menu per sub-info area.
2. The Search action template contains SubListParams defining the behavior of sub-lists. The SubListParam virtualInfoArea.ReadMode defined here is applied to all sub-lists.
3. The Search action template input argument virtualInfoAreaReadMode defines the behavior for the result set and all sublists.
4. The Web Configuration parameter virtualInfoArea.List.ReadMode defines the context menu behavior for all lists.

Filters

Virtual info areas are also used as filter namespaces. Therefore filters defined for the physical info area (e.g. FI) are not visible in a Search&List defined for a virtual info area (e.g. VDOC) and vice versa. For further details, see filterNameSpace.

MiniDetails

MiniDetails are always read from the configuration of the specified, physical or virtual, info area.

Expand New

When creating a record in a virtual info area, the criteria defined in the virtual data model are automatically applied as fixed defaults and saved to the new record.

If the fields used as criteria are displayed on the Details control, they are automatically filled when the user selects New. However, the user may change those field values and therefore create records for other than the virtual info area. To prevent this, check the Readonly field attribute for those fields. For further details, see Readonly.

Example: A virtual info area VAUT for companies with Country='Austria' is defined. If a user creates a new record in VAUT, the Country field is automatically set to "Austria" and cannot be changed.

Expand, TreeView

The Expand and TreeView action templates automatically determine whether there is a matching virtual info area and use it. All controls on an Expand/TreeView action template use the virtual info area as well. Therefore table captions and context menus are read from the virtual info area definition.

If no Expand/TreeView configuration for a virtual info area exists, the configuration of the physical info area is used as fallback.

If a record is changed in a way that the criteria don't match the virtual info area definition anymore, the Expand view falls back to the physical info area.

TreeView table captions

If a TreeView contains nodes for both the virtual and the physical info area, records of the virtual info area are displayed in both nodes.

Each record (regardless of the node it is listed in) compares its info area with the info area defined in the TreeView configuration:

• If they match, the defined table caption is used (if no table caption is defined the base table caption is used).
• If the info areas don't match (i.e. for virtual info area records listed in the physical info area's node), the base table caption (e.g. VMA1) is used.

Thus if a physical info area lists records from both the virtual and the physical info area, they can be distinguished using different table captions.

ExpandChildren

The context menu displayed for records in ExpandChildren is determined according to the defined virtualInfoAreaReadMode. For further details, see virtualInfoAreaReadMode.

1. The ExpandChildren header contains SubListParams for all defined child info areas. The SubListParam virtualInfoArea.ReadMode defines the context menu behavior per child info area.
2. The Web Configuration parameter virtualInfoArea.List.ReadMode defines the context menu behavior for all sub-lists.

Favorites

Since favorites are stored in the Aurea CRM database, they necessarily contain only a reference to the physical info area. Therefore you can not explicitly manage favorites of a virtual info area: If you add such a record to your favorites, it is displayed both below the physical and the virtual info area.

Example: If you add a VDOC record to your favorites, it is visible for the FI favorites and for the VDOC favorites.

For favorites, the table caption of the configured info area is always displayed.

Link Records

Aurea CRM.Web accepts link records from the physical as well as from one of the related virtual info areas.

Queries

When defining queries, users can select virtual info areas just like physical info areas. You can even define separate field lists (i.e. VXXX.Query field groups) per virtual info area. For further details, see Special Field Groups Naming Conventions.

The context menus used for queries and for saved query results are determined by the current setting of the Web Configuration parameter virtualInfoArea.Query.ReadMode and/or the defined action template arguments. For further details, see virtualInfoAreaReadMode.

When saving a query in the Aurea CRM data base (Web Configuration parameter Query.SaveTo set to "Aurea CRM/both"), the query is automatically re-formatted to "physical info area + condition on criterion field"). Thus, queries defined with virtual info areas can also be used by CRM.server. For further details, see CRM.Server.

Default Action, Default Menu

When the default menu or default action of a record is requested, the matching virtual info area's definition is used.