Thanks for downloading CC Pivot. In order to use the Pivots you will need to ensure that the included plugin is included in any FileMaker Pro installation that will be using CC Pivot.
The archive you downloaded should have included the plugin for both Macintosh and Windows operating systems, and after extraction, the appropriate plugin should go in the extensions folder in your Filemaker Pro application folder.
There are three simple steps to integrating CC Pivot with your existing Filemaker solution, and they are simple enough that anyone can do them in under 10 minutes.
First, for any file that has a table you want to report on, you'll need to add an external data source for it to the CC Pivot solution. You do this by opening CC Pivot, and under the "File" menu, selecting the "Manage" sub-menu, and then selecting "External Data Sources...". This will open a new window, you can click the "New" button" which will open yet another window, allowing you to click the "Add File..." button, which then prompts you to find the file you want to add to the reporting system. Once a file has been added you can click or to close each dialog box that has been opened. First step done!
The second step is to add a table occurrence for each table that has data you want to generate a report for. You can do this by opening the "Database..." Menu under the "Manage" section of the "File" menu, much like in the first step. With the Manage Database window open you want to click on the "relationships" section at the top of the window. This will show you the relationships graph of our CC Pivot system. You do not need to change anything that is already here, you just need to add a table occurrence for your data table. You can click the add table occurrence button (pic needed), select your file under the data source popup in the window that opens, and select the table you want. You should add as many tables as you will want to report on as long as you are in here doing this. Once the table occurrences are added, you can close the manage database window. We're done. You don't need to rename or move them in any way, although if you are like me you may want to clean up your newly added table occurrences so they look tidy. But it's up to you.
The third step is one of the easiest. You need to refresh the CC Pivot system to check for fields in the tables you've added. This is simple: Just click the "Settings" button in the lower left corner of the screen, and click the "Update" button on the left side near the top. That's it. The system will do all the checking for you.
That's it. You're done! Now its time to create your first pivot table.
To create a pivot, the simple explaination is to click the "New" button, select your table, and fill out the info. However perhaps a more detailed explaniation will help a bit.
There are actually six areas in creating your pivot table and we'll deal with each in order. Although you can fill them out in any order, some are required for the table to be meaningful, and we'll discuss those and other considerations in each section.
Data Table
This is a simple pop-up menu with all the table occurrences you have integrated in the system. If you do not see the table occurrence in the list, you may need to go to the settings layout via the "Settings" button at the bottom of the screen and click the "Update" button on the "General" tab. Selecting your data table is an important and necessary step as that will determinethe context for the rest of the pivot table.
Style
Another basic pop-up menu, this will determine the style of your pivot table. There are a couple things to note, however. First, the style can e changed without re-calculating the pivot table, so the appeaance can be changed very quickly. This means the decision about style need not be given too much initial thought, it is an easy change. Second, the styles that are included by default are only meant as a starting point. You as a developer have the power to add as many styles as you want. This is done on the styling tab of the settings screes. The styles are simple cascading style sheets (CSS) and if you are unfamiliar with this form of formatting, there are many fantastic resources online to learn more.
Fields To Use In Pivot
This section will fill out automatically when you select a data table. This will show all of the fields not only in the table you selected for your data table, but also any tables which are related to it in the CCPivot file. It is important to not that only those relationships you have created in CC Pivot are recognizied, no relationships the data table may have in other files.
Slicer Fields
There are four fields to fill out in the slicer fields section. The first, "sort" is fairly straightforward. The fields will evaluate in this order, re-number the fields to re-order them. The next, field name, can be filled out, or you can use drag and drop to move fields from the fields portal to this loaction. If you type data in here directly, make sure you get the name and table occurrence exactly. The "Pivot Header" colum is for display. This is the name that will print in the pivot table. Finally position. This will allow you to set if the slicer is aligned vertically or horizontally.
Data Fields
This section has the first three colums as the slicer fields above, and they behave exactly the same way. The next three fields however, are different. Operation is used to set the type of aggregate function that will be applied. Currently the syste supports SUMmary, AVErage, COUNT, MINimum and MAXimum. The format field is for formating the data for display, we have three default choices, but any format supported by the java formatter specification is acceptable. To read more on this specification go here. Finally there is a locale colum in case your data would be better handled by a specific localization setting.
Filters
Filters are like a built in find for your data, You can drag any field from the data portal to the filed sell to set up a filter for that field. Select an operator and a value and you are set. There is a logic field in case you want to include an "OR" type search on your data as well. One important caveat. If you select a date field for a filter, you will need to enter your dat in the MM-DD-YYYY format. f you enter date data in a format that is close but slightly off (like using a slash instead of a dash) we will try to correct it for you, but best to get it right yourself.
Buttons
There are a few buttons whose purpose could use a bit of explination.
First is the "Update" button. Whenever you change any of the detail of the pivot table, with the exception of the style, you will need to update your pivot table to display the changes. There are two sorts of update that the button could perform, either a idsplay update or a data and display update. We will attempt to determine the correct one for you when you click the button. If you have only changed settings that would affect the display of the pivot table, like the format of a data field for example, then we will only re-calculate the format portion of the pivot table. We will not go and fetch the data over again first. However if you change the data level settings, like adding a field or a filter, then we will fetch the data agin before re-drawing the pivot table. If you ever want to update both the data and the display in spite of what the system believes needs done, just hold down the "Shift" key when clicking the update button.
The "Settings" button takes you to the settings screen, which is discussed in more detail below.
There are four buttons dealing with the report records themselves. The "New", "Open", "Save" and "Save As" buttons are all used to handle the report records, the one thing worth noting, the system uses global fields to manage the currently selected record for a number of reasons. The one important impact is that you will need to save your work before exiting the system if you want to easily recall the pivot table again at a latter date.
The "Print" button will open the pivot table in your default browser for printing. Since we are using a web data viewer to display the pivot table, this is the most straightforward of printing.
There is a layout for displaying the pivot table without all the setup information which can be accessed via the "Expand" button. This will show the exact same pivot table, only in a leaner layout. This layout can also be used to display a cleaner look to users who should not have access to the interface for modifying the pivot table.
There are four tabs on the settings screen, each of which is discussed below in its own section.
The general tab holds three main settings. First, the default locale, which can be over ridden by the per field locale setting on the pivot table screen. Next, the file and table information, which can be updated to show the table occurrences in the relationships tab of the define databases of CC Pivot, as described in the integration section of this help document. And, finally, the data formats section where new data formats can be entered for selection. You can see the data Fields section above for more information on the format expected here.
The stylong tab hold all the CSS styling for the pivot table styling options. All the CSS is in one text boc for easy copy and paste from an external editor if you choose.
If you wish to perform any javascript on the data as it is returned for bettr formatting or handling, you can enter it here. We have some sample code here which allows us to format alternating rows nicely and a few other things. You need not edit this, but it is available to you. This is a fairly powerful option, so remember, with great power comes great responsibility.
This tab allows you to modify the default settins for data parsing and display. The seperators are exposed here on the offhand chance our default seperators "|*|*|", "|**|" and"|*END" are present in your data. There is also the option to change the default language for the summary sections. This would primarily be important for deploying to different languages". If you make any changes here you would need to click the "Update" button to apply them system wide. One additional note, to help us continuously improve the performance of the system, the system is setup to periodically send anonymous usage information to us. If you wish to opt out of this, there is a checkbox on this screen to do so.