Beacon for Business - Managing Manufacturing

Design

Query Process

Development of Walstan’s query process for Beacon for business grew out of users wanting to use data entry screens for queries.

The ability to drill to get further information from data entry screens is what sets Beacon queries apart.  Items shown in blue, or with a tick beside them in a list, may be drilled on for further information.  (This follows Beacon security, of course – not everyone has access to GL account information).

Parameters defined for a query include:

  • prompt ID (may be from search)

  • file to report from

  • dictionary item ID of each data cell to show

  • each header item

    • source data cell

    • position on form

    • query to drill to for further information

  • each column item

    • source data cell

    • heading and column width

  • columns description

  • columns drill to and drill ID(s) source

Data shown on queries is from live files, so is absolutely up to date. 

Columns may be exported to Microsoft Excel for further manipulation, graphs, etc.

Query results may be printed, to produce parh copy.