Adventure Works in 5 minutes
This is a quick but complete run down of how easy it is to make a functional web application from the contents of a database. You can go to the Application Setup Overview to get the step-by-step documentation.
Transcript
In this tutorial we are going to walk through the process of taking an existing database and building a Web Application using dbFront. We are going to use a Microsoft sample database named Adventure Works.
With the database created and populated, we start up dbFront. When you log in you must use an account that has administrative privileges. For more information you can see the knowledgebase.
Once we are logged in, we can create a new Database Connection.
We will need access to a database account at this point. It is important to use a database account that only has the necessary access. Less access means better performance and better security. This account will be stored and used by dbFront to provide access to this database.
Once the database connection has been saved, we will see the list of databases the connection has access to.
System databases are hidden by default.
Notice the small gear icon next to the database name. Whenever you see this icon it means that there is something you can configure. In this case it is the properties of the database.
In the database properties the first tab allows us to set a meaningful name for the users and a short description.
We can also place the database into a group. All databases with the same group name will show up in a tab together. The group could be a department name, or business area.
We can also select a theme for the database to help users distinguish one database from another.
The Manage-Tables tab, is where we manage how the tables will appear for this current application. This is highly application or role specific.
The first column is for the primary tables. Those would be the main tables a user is interested in such as Customer, Product and SalesOrderHeader. Again, this is highly dependent on the focus of your application.
The second column is for child tables that are only meaningful in relation to another table. For example, Address, CustomerAddress and SalesOrderDetail.
The third column is for lookup tables such as ProductCategory, ProductDescription and ProductModel.
The last column is for tables that will be hidden for Non-Admin users. We would use this for lookup tables that you don't want the user to edit.
Finally, we save the database properties.
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Before we leave the Advanced-View, it should be noted that this view is targeted to database administrators and other I T personnel who understand databases and servers.
Let's switch to the User-View to see what a regular user might encounter when they log in.
In this view all databases from all locations are mixed together. That is why dbFront gives you the ability to group these databases by using groups a business user would understand.
As you can see, there is a tab with our database in it. All databases that were not grouped are put under a tab named "No Group".
We can now select our newly created database application.
The main tables appear in the menu along the top. This allows for easy access. If there are too many main tables, dbFront will show the first few tables and place the remainder under a menu item named "Main".
Those tables marked as child tables won't appear on the menu but they will appear wherever they are related to the current table.
The tables marked as lookup tables can be found in the lookup menu. If you want a lookup table to be hidden from the average user then mark it as hidden. Hidden tables are only used to populate dropdowns but don't allow any browsing or editing.
The exception is that administrators will have full access to hidden tables via a menu named "System".
Once you open a table you will see more gear icons: beside the table, the fields, and various other places. Those icons are only available for administrators.
Let's look at the table properties.
In the table properties you can update the caption of the table to match what a business user would understand. On the first tab you will also have the ability to pick the caption fields. This allows you to choose the fields that most clearly describe the record.
You can also select what fields you want to see in the table at the top of the screen...
and what fields you want to see in the details pane. In addition to choosing the fields you can also specify the field order.
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One important thing you can do here is create action buttons which can trigger database procedures and perform other special functions. That will be covered in another tutorial.
Once we save the table properties we see our changes including the updated menu.
Now let's switch to the Product table and look at some other field properties.
There are different properties available depending upon the field type. One of the most basic field properties is its caption. dbFront will try to come up with good captions based on the existing field names but you may need to edit some field captions.
You may also need to update the columns that are visible for lookup fields. For example on the product table we have a dropdown which allows a user to select the product category. dbFront allows you to select your prefered fields and their sort order.
Further changes can be made such as fine tuning how specific fields display or validate but we will cover that in more detail later.
When we are done making the needed changes to clean things up for users, then we can switch back to the Advanced-View to give the various users access.
The Connection-Access button, brings up a dialog that allows you to quickly choose specific users and select their access.
Once the changes are saved then it is all ready for your users to start working with your data. All of the search, editing and reporting functionality is immediately available.
As your users start using your new Web Application they will likely have suggestions and change requests. With dbFront you can quickly log back in and make any changes as needed. Even-live.
Thank you for watching.