Application usage basics

1. Signing in to the portal

Once you enter the portal address, the sign-in form appears in the main window; the header and the navigation area around it are still empty. Your user name and password are assigned to you by the portal administrator.

After several consecutive invalid sign-in attempts, sign-in is blocked for that user for 24 hours. Details are described in the separate guide Login to the portal.
On a mobile device, the sign-in window also offers a display size option. Small display is intended for phones — portlets and form controls are stacked below one another in a single column. Large display is intended for tablets and shows content the same way as a personal computer.

Change your password after signing in for the first time. Click the avatar in the right part of the header and choose Change password.

2. Getting your bearings on the screen

After signing in, the main page of the portal opens. The screen has three parts that stay in place throughout your work:

Header — the coloured strip at the top. On the left is an optional logo, on the right the current date with the number of signed-in users, the avatar of the signed-in user, and at the very right the icons for signing out and for opening a new tab. Along the bottom edge of the header is the application groups bar, which is the starting point for reaching any agenda.
Navigation area — the left bar with the list of applications of the selected application group and with favorite items.
Main window — the working area that shows the actual content: the main page with portlets, view pages or edit forms.

In the right part of the header is the avatar — a circle with the first letter of your name and of your surname. To the left of it is the current date, and below the date the number of users currently signed in; clicking that number opens their list. Clicking the avatar opens the personal menu with your name in its heading; depending on the portal settings and your rights it contains Change password, Organize favorites, Organize portlets and Log out.

Useful details:

The navigation area can be hidden using the folded-page icon, which widens the main window. This is worth doing for large reports.
To the right of the avatar are two icons — the first signs you out, the second opens the portal in a new browser tab.
Do not confuse the personal menu under the avatar (settings of the signed-in user) with the Settings application group, in which the administrator manages the whole portal.
If you have administrator rights, the header additionally shows the switch between user and administrator mode and that very Settings application group. A regular user sees neither of them, so their header differs from the images here in this small detail.

On a mobile device the header and the navigation area are not shown separately — their controls are part of the mobile menu, which opens when you click the NET Genium logo. A detailed description of all parts of the screen, including the mobile variant, is given in the separate guide Control area.

3. How the portal is structured

The content of the portal is organised into four levels. Knowing these terms makes the whole documentation easier to follow:

Application group — the top level, an item in the bar in the header. It brings together applications that are thematically related (for example Customers, Sales, Finance, Inventory).
Application — one specific agenda. It is shown in bold in the navigation area and consists of view pages and edit forms. Larger applications can be divided further into categories.
View page — a view of the data. It shows records in a table, calendar, chart or another overview component and is usually the entry point into an agenda.
Edit form — the screen of a single record. It is used to create the record, modify it and validate the entered values.

The relationship between the last two is the key one: you browse records on a view page and change them in an edit form. From a report you get to the form by opening a record or by using the button for creating a new one.

What you actually see depends on your permissions. An application group, application, page or individual field you have no right to will not be shown to you at all — a missing item therefore does not necessarily mean an error.

4. Moving around the portal

The procedure is always the same, from the top down:

In the header, click an application group. The list of its applications appears in the navigation area.
Click an application. The list of its view pages, or categories, expands.
Click a view page. It is shown in the main window.

Clicking the logo in the header takes you back to the main page.

Use the portal controls to move around, not the Back and Forward buttons of the browser. The portal keeps the state of forms in progress and of filters, which the browser history knows nothing about; the browser buttons may therefore be disabled for a given portal. If you need to have two parts of the portal open at once, open a second tab using the icon near the right edge of the header.

5. Main page, portlets and favorite items

Portlets are windows on the main page that show what matters most without you having to go through the individual agendas — typically new tasks, messages or records awaiting your response. They can be arranged into one, two or three columns and you arrange them yourself — choose Organize portlets in the menu under the avatar. A detailed description is given in the separate guide Portlets.

Favorite items are quick links to view pages you use often. You add the currently displayed page using the icon in the navigation area and remove it the same way; you can rename and rearrange them using Organize favorites, which you will find in the menu under the avatar as well as directly at the favorite items in the navigation area. A detailed description is given in the separate guide Favorite items.

Changes in both dialogs always have to be saved.

6. Record reports

A view page contains one or more view tables. Each of them shows records from one agenda.

You choose the number of rows per page in the drop-down list in the bottom left corner of the table. If not all records fit, you switch between pages using the buttons in the middle of the bottom edge.
The number of displayed records is shown in the top right corner of the table. This number reflects the active filters, so it also tells you how many records match the conditions.
If the table has Details enabled, clicking a row shows a panel with further information about the record below the table — you do not have to open it for that. You can also move between rows using Ctrl and the up or down arrow.
You open a record by clicking the pencil icon on the left-hand side of the row.

6.1. Table toolbar

You reach the more advanced functions by hovering the mouse cursor over the table header — the table name is temporarily replaced by a bar of icons. In the order in which they appear:

New record… — opens the edit form for a new record.
Refresh — reloads the content of the table.
View table settings… — choice of displayed columns, details, tooltips and sorting.
Search… — shows and hides the search row.
Default sorting — returns record sorting to the default.
Hide — hides the content of the table so that only its title remains visible.
Mark records… — shows and hides the check boxes for bulk operations.
Composed condition… — a filter across several columns at once.
Cancel filters… — removes all filters set in the table.
Import data… — loads data from a file.
Export data… — saves the displayed data to a file.
Delete records in the view table — deletes the records displayed in the table.

The toolbar adapts to the situation, so you never see all the icons at once:

New record… is shown only if the table has record creation enabled.
Cancel filters… is shown only if a filter is actually set — otherwise there is nothing to cancel.
Hide changes to Show once the content is hidden.
Search, marking of records, import, export and deletion can all be turned off for a particular table; your permissions play a role as well.

6.2. Searching and filtering

Records can be narrowed down in three ways, which can be combined:

Full-text search — you enter the searched text in the field above the table and select the columns to be searched. After pressing Search, only the matching records remain displayed.
Column filter — you select a value in the column header and the table is filtered immediately. Choosing Search (or double-clicking the filter) shows a field in which it is enough to type the first letters and the portal itself offers matching values. Using Custom filter you enter a condition such as equals, contains, starts with, greater or less. If a column contains a large number of different values, the Load values option is offered first — the list is not loaded in advance, for the sake of speed.
Composed condition — a filter across several columns at once, for example “invoice price > 5000” and at the same time “due date = today”. You open it using the icon in the toolbar, then select a column, a condition and a value. On the Template tab the condition can be named and saved as a button above the table, which you then use with a single click next time; it can be deleted in the same place.

Filters and searches you set remain in effect even after you leave the page and after you log out. If a table looks empty or the records you expect are missing from it, look for the cause in the filters first. You can cancel them using the Cancel filters… icon in the toolbar, using the All option in the filter of an individual column, or using the Cancel search button in the search row, which cancels both the search and the column filters. If the filter returned no record at all, the table also offers the Cancel filters… option directly in the message about the empty result.

6.3. Bulk changes

If they are enabled in the table, you can modify or delete several records at once. A bulk change applies to all filtered records; if marking is enabled and at least one row is checked, it is carried out only in the marked ones.

Before a bulk change, therefore, always check what is filtered and what is marked. Records that do not pass the validation of entered values are not saved, and the portal does not report them individually during a bulk operation.

6.4. Your own view of the table

Unless the administrator has forbidden it, you can adapt the table using the View table settings icon — show and hide columns, change the display of filters, details and tooltips. The portal remembers the setting for you and it does not affect other users. A complete description of the options of a view table is given in the separate guide View page — DataGrid.

6.5. Other ways of displaying data

A table is not the only form a report can take. Depending on the agenda you may also come across these components:

Tree structure — records organised into folders, typically for documents. You create a new record at the level you are standing on.
Calendar and planners — records laid out in time. Besides a calendar, the portal can also show a Gantt chart or a timetable.
Charts and statistics — summary views of the data.

7. Entering and modifying records

Records are created and changed in an edit form. The controls in it are divided into sections by headings and, in longer forms, split into tabs.

Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory — you cannot save the record without them.
Most controls have help on the right. If there is a question mark icon instead, the help is shown only after you click it.

7.1. Saving and deleting

Every form has three basic buttons at its end:

Save — saves the record, closes the form and returns you to the report.
Delete — removes the record.
Back — closes the form without saving.

The administrator can hide any of them and can additionally show two more save buttons, so in some forms you will also meet these:

Save and continue editing — saves the record and leaves the form open.
Save and new — saves the record and immediately opens an empty form for the next one.

Until you press one of the Save buttons, changes are not saved. If you leave the form in another way, the portal will usually ask about the unsaved changes.

Keyboard shortcuts in the form:
Ctrl + Enter = Save
Ctrl + Delete = Delete
Ctrl + Backspace = Back
Ctrl + 1 = Save and new
Ctrl + 2 = Save and continue editing

The digits in the last two shortcuts are entered on the numeric keypad, not in the top row of the main keyboard area. The shortcut only works if the button in question is actually shown in the form.

7.2. Controls you will meet most often

Picker — selection of a record from a list, for example a supplier from a list of companies. Clicking the icon opens a floating table, which disappears again after the selection. You work with it in the same way as with a view table, so searching and filtering work identically. A detailed description is given in the separate guide Picker.
Nested table — a view table inside a form that shows records belonging to the open record (for example invoice items). It works the same way as a table on a view page.
File attachments — you select a file using the Browse button, or drag it with the mouse from your computer onto the appropriate place in the form. An image can also be inserted using Ctrl + V from the clipboard.
Scope — determines who will see the record. You select users or whole user groups; all those selected will then see the record. If you leave the field empty, everyone will see the record.
Inform other users — after ticking it, a list of users and a field for a message appear. After saving, the selected users receive an e-mail with a link to the record. It is a one-off notification, useful when you need to tell someone about a change outside the usual procedure.

8. Printing and export

Print reports create a finished document from the data — an individual invoice, an order, a stock document or a list of records. The portal first saves the record and then generates a filled-in template in MS Word, MS Excel or PDF format, which you download and print.

Depending on the particular application, print report buttons are either in the edit form of the record or on the view page. How the reports are created is described in the guide Print templates.

Export saves the content of a view table to a file — it offers MS Excel, CSV, MS Word, HTML, TXT, XML and other formats. Two things apply to it that are easy to overlook:

Only the records displayed in the table are exported, that is, after the filters have been applied. If you want to export everything, cancel the filters first.
Only the columns displayed in the table are exported. If you need all the data, tick the option for all columns during the export.

A complete description of the formats and their particularities is given in the separate guide Datagrid data export.

This guide describes working with a finished portal. If you are interested in how applications in NET Genium are designed and managed, start with the guide Administration basics.