Nennius Documentation :: User Manual
Nennius User Manual

Although Nennius allows multiple Web applications to be run simultaneously there are several basic operations which remain the same regardless of their context. Because of this it may be useful to first explain the generic steps required to manipulate data, before going into a more detailed explaination of a specific Web application.

Please click on an item below for more information:
- Creating a Record
- Editing a Record
- Deleting a Record
- Searching and Sorting
- Logging In and Out
Creating a Record

Creating a new record is basically the same regardless of which Nennius application you are running. A user may create a record by clicking the "create new record" button found at the bottom of each component's main view page. Upon doing so, the user will be prompted for information needed to complete a new record's creation.

Select Menus:

One of the most important jobs of Nennius is to manage the relationship between 2 or more entities or data types. When creating (or editing) a record, a user will often be presented with drop down menus allowing them to select one of many options. In this event, each menu choice presented is likely a record itself in another section of the tracker. The record being created will then be associated with the record chosen from the dropdown.

Required Fields:

Certain fields will be required in each section in order to create (or edit) a record. The number and type of these fields will vary from section to section, but can be easily determined if not known: required field names will always be underlined. If a user fails to provide a required field, a pop-up dialog box will warn him that the field is required before proceeding. If a form is submitted with one or more required fields missing, an error messaged will be displayed and all missing fields will be highlighted red.

Unique Fields:

In certain situations it is useful to require that a field be unique, meaning that within a given data set no two records share the same value for that field. If a field is marked unique and a user submits a non-unique value for it, an error messaged will be displayed and the field will be highlighted red. The user may then correct the error by typing a unique name.

Stay in Add Mode:

If a user wishes to add multiple records at once, it is often faster to choose the option to "Stay in Add Mode". If checked, after a new record has been created, this option will then return the user to an empty 'create new record' form. The user may continue to add as many new records as desired, or select "return to view all " from the Add Mode drop-down to be returned to the main view mode.

Preview Mode:

If a user wishes to preview a newly added or modified record, he may do so by selecting "preview mode" from the Add Mode drop-down. This will display the newly updated record information, along with options to modify or delete the entry.

Return to View All Records

If a user has chosen to create a new record accidentally, he or she may return to the main view mode simply by selecting the "Return to View All Records" button at the bottom of the page. In the event that this button is clicked, no new record information will be recorded.

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Editing a Record

Editing an existing record is very similar to creating a new record. The main differences is that instead of clicking 'create a new record', the user will need to click the light blue button to the left of the record he or she wishes to edit. This button (see Figure 1) will take the user to a form which may be used to modify the entry he has chosen.


Figure 1 - Edit record button. Button appears to the left of each editable record.

Once the edit button has been clicked, a user may either supply updated information about the record in question, or choose to delete the record.

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Deleting a Record

To delete a record, a user has two options:

1 - Whlie in editing a record, the user may choose to 'Delete Record' by clicking the button at the bottom of the screen.
2 - While in the main view mode a user may select the dark blue button (see Figure 2) to the left of the record.


Figure 2 - Delete record button. Button appears to the left of each editable record.

Before processing the delete request, the user will be shown the full record details and prompted to verify that they wish to proceed with the deletion. If the user declines, he or she will be returned to the main view mode and the record will not be updated. If the user accepts, the record will be permanently deleted.

There is no way to recover a deleted record short of a database restore, so be certain that you wish to delete a record before proceeding with this step. Nennius is setup to easily allow older records to be filtered out of the main view mode without being deleted, while still allowing for a quick and easy removal of erroneous records. This is the prefered way to interact with the system.

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Searching and Sorting

Each Nennius component offers the ability to search, sort, and filter records or entries. This filtering may be done based soly on attributes of the component in question, but may also incorporate attributes of related components as well.

Searching / Filtering:

In order to view a restricted record set, a filter must be applied. Filter specifications are stored via session, and as such will stay active as long as a user's browser remains open. In order to apply a new filter, or override an existing filter, a user must simply enter their search criteria into the filtering form presented at the top of a component's main view page. Once the desired conditions have been entered, the 'apply new filter' button should be clicked to activate the filter (see Figure 3).


Figure 3 - The apply filter button is located in the top right hand corner of a component's main view page.

The most basic type of filtering criteria are dropdown menus. These menus allow a user to view one or more records that match the chosen value for that attribute.

Many of the more complex dropdown menus will show more than one attribute in the same field, in an attempt to clarify the relationship between records for a user. In this case, multiple values may be displayed in a single drop-down menu option. These values will be seperated by an arrow (->) however, and should be easily distinguishable from each other.

Another type of filtering is often used for *Date or Time data types. This filtering allows the user to enter text directly into a textbox. In the case of the Date type, an additional Javascript date-picker will be presented as well to the right of the input box. Often, Time and Date fields will also allow the user to search by a minimum and maximum value (as shown above).

*When entering dates, the Nennius requires a standard format of YYYY-MM-DD for Dates, or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS for Times. If a user enters a value in another format, the system will attempt to convert that value but may fail under certain conditions. For example, a value entered in the format of MM/DD/YY would be converted incorrectly, as the system requires that any Date or Time values entered with slashes have the year first, then the month, and lastly the day.

Pagination:

If more records are present for a component than can be displayed on the screen at any given time, records will be split into seperate pages accessible by hyperlinks at the top of a component's page. These hyperlinks will appear in the format of 'Page 1', 'Page 2', etc. A user's current page is also stored in a session, allowing the user to leave a particular component and return later to the same page by default.

Sorting:

By default, all records are displayed in the order in which they were entered into Nennius. To change this behavior, a user must simply click on the lable of the field by which he or she wishes to sort records. Upon being clicked, an arrow will appear by the fieldname in question and records will be re-sorted in either ascending or descending order. (The default direction for sorts is ascending, but descending direction will be applied if a field is clicked twice consecutively.)

Each time a new sorting option is applied, the user will be returned to the first page of the newly sorted record set. This may at first confuse a user, but is much more intuitive than leaving the user on a pre-selected page of newly sorted results when the order of results itself is, in most cases, not related to the previous result's order.

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Logging In and Out

Some Nennius Web applications may require a user to first authenticate himself before accessing any data. To login a user must enter his or her username and password when prompted. (The password may be specified in the User's database record, or may correspond with his LDAP username, depending on how the tracker has been configured.)

Upon a successful login, several pieces of information are recorded and stored temporarily in a Cookie on the user's machine. These pieces of information include but are not limited to: user id, username, password, email address, name, and user threshold value. Also stored are the date and time at which the user last logged in to the tracker.

Throughout a user's session these bits of information are used to personalize the data presented, perform advanced functions, check restrictions and permissions, etc. Because of this, it is important for a user to remember than any time changes are made to his User account, those changes will not be applied until the he first logs out of the tracker and then logs back in.

To logout of the system, a user must simply select the 'Logout' option at the bottom of the main menu panel. Before logging a user out, Nennius first destroys all values being stored in the user's session as well as the previously mentioned Cookie information. This assures that users will not be granted unrestricted access to other user's accounts in cases which require that a terminal be used by more than one user.

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