Creative Ways to Use Information Links
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By Bob Amalfitano |
| I have always thought Information Links are wonderful productivity tools. They may be the most useful way to customize your work environment to minimize data entry when navigating between commonly used areas of the system. |
| Information Links allow you to add dropdowns to Editor and Transaction data elements so that you can quickly access the information most important to you in other Editors, Inquiries, Reports or Transactions. |
| Typically they are entered by your IT group and are very easy to set up. Each link takes about one minute to create. These links are global settings and will be seen by all that have security access to the form and to activity. |
| Rarely a day goes by that I don’t find another opportunity to create an Information Link that makes my life easier. I currently have well over 100 information links in place in my system. |
| A key thing to remember about Information Links is if you don’t see the data element link in the Record Selection Question Tab of a report, you can always add that data element using Report Manager. With inquiry screens the data element must be available in the search criteria section of the inquiry. You can have no more than 6 search criteria on an inquiry screen. |
| Be sure to check with all users who use this inquiry before deleting one to replace it with yours. Again these activities are usually controlled by your IT group. |
| Here’s the Expandable Support Note that explains how to use Information Links: |
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| Following is one example of how Information Links can work to your advantage. Your company needs a receiver to accompany parts to the stockroom. If your receiving person is in the PO receipts screen (POTRE) information links can be put in place to make the job a breeze. If you have a generic Purchase Receiver Report (PORRR), you only have three selection criteria: PO ID, Vendor ID, and Vendor Name. |
| 1. |
Using Report Manager add a Line Number selection |
| 2. |
Add an information link with the following information: |
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Program ID: POTRE |
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Data Element Name: PO_ID |
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Destination Program ID: PORRR |
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In source data elements: PO_ID, LINE_NUMBER |
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In destination data elements: PO_ID, LINE_NUMBER |
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| 3. |
Have your receiving person enter the PO number, execute the query and highlight the line to be received. |
| 4. |
Click the blue PO ID and select Purchase Receiver Form |
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| The PO receiver will be displayed in the print preview mode (only the highlighted line). The receiver window also has a print preview shortcut icon but if you use that the PO receiver preview will display all open lines. |
| Another often overlooked data element is Batch Number in transactions screens. These can be linked to various inquiry screens to summarize information. |
| Yet another helpful link can be made between a data element in one screen and a user field data element in another field. |
| See me at Expandability 2010 and I will personally show you the Information Links I have created and how I set them up. |
| I would love to hear about other interesting links people have made. Email me at ramalfitano@expandable.com with your creations. |
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