Elements provide a central reference for all fields. Each defined field has a corresponding element. This leads to the consistent labeling of fields, displaying of reports and of the help text. An element is defined only once and can be used in a variety of tables and windows. The data entered when defining the elements is automatically synchronized with the corresponding fields both in the tables and in the windows.
Elements can be defined in the System Element window, found in the Application Dictionary menu. This window can only be accessed when logging in with a System Administrator role (usually System). The following fields are available:
DB Column Name - reference used to link the element to a certain field from a table;
Name - the name of the label used in any window, form or form parameter where the element is referred to;
Print Text - the text of the column that will be displayed at printing;
Description and Comment - optional, the data entered in these fields will be visible when hovering the mouse above a field linked to the element and in the Help window;
Active - select this checkbox to indicate that the element is active;
Entity Type - the default value is User Defined and it can be changed to another defined entity. If you wish to keep the customizations when updating, do not use the SocrateCloud Dictionary types or types corresponding to specific components;
The Synchronize Terminology process updates fields according to their corresponding system element.
the process will update translations for each field within the window tabs, using the translations defined for the corresponding system element;
if the field does not have Centrally Maintained checked, it will not be updated by the process;
for a report parameter, depending on whether it has a system element, the following will apply:
if no system element exists, a new one will be created and used to synchronize translations;
the new system element will be created with the name on the header, without using the existing translations;
if a system element exists, it will be used regardless if it is entered or not on the process;
for both cases the system element will not be automatically entered on the process;
starting with v17.02:
the system element will be mandatoryy when defining process parameters (same as with table columns);
the DB Column Name field will be read only and can be modified only by changing the system element;
changing the DB Column Name for a system element will afect all parameters using the respective system element;
Records available in the Context Area window can be selected in windows, processes and forms. When running the Synchronize Terminology process, for a field within the respective window, process or form and their corresponding element, the data available in the System Element window, Element Context tab, will be used to update the field, instead of the data available in the System Element window.