Fields, Templates, Forms, Records and Reports

Overview

All applications in Softools adhere to a standardised navigation and structural model. At the core of this model are five key components: Fields --> Templates --> Forms --> Records --> Reports.

• Field: The smallest component within an application, used to capture individual data points. The Field will expect a defined data type such as Text, Email, Number, Selection, Date set by the App Builder as the Field Type.

• Template: A layout that organises multiple Fields into a logical and user-friendly structure to define a step in the business process.

• Form: A container that groups one or more Templates, typically grouping process steps into a phase in a business process.

• Record: An instance of data generated when a user completes the Form(s) data. Each Record stores the values entered into the Fields against that specific Record.

• Report: A visualisation layer that aggregates and displays Records. Reports may present data in tabular format (e.g. line-item table or kanban card views) or as summaries (e.g. charts, dashboards, or matrices).

Understanding this hierarchy is essential for navigating, entering data into and designing applications effectively within Softools. We'll break this down by looking at the structure of an App Hopper app which is designed to capture all Business Processes that we will be building a Softools App for.

Fields provide data capture points

Fields provide a means for capturing data, either via direct manual input, via csv import / export routines or via automatic system routines using APIs. In our example we will need to capture the same data points for every Business Process we are adding to the Hopper. 

Here, App Name, App Requested By, Requestor Email, ... are each a Field in our App as they capture a specific piece of information in our process. Fields will have a set type based on the expected input. App Name is a Text Field as it needs to be free entry for each instance in the Hopper, # Users is a Number Field as it only makes sense to have a numerical value and App Build is a Selection Field so the User chooses a value from a choice of set values it expects.

Templates and Forms define the Field Layout

Templates and Forms enable us to define a systematic approach in managing business process. As seen in the image below the structure is as follows: A Form encapsulates the Template(s) and the template encapsulates the Field(s).

In our Hopper App, we can see that the Fields have been grouped into different Steps within a Phase of the overall Process.

In the 3. App Improve template it is logical that for this step we first set the Ops Lead, then we add information from the Steering Group and after this we set the Go Live Date along with when we next need to review App Improvements.

Taking a step higher, we can group our Templates into our Overview Form. The Overview Form is made up of logical sequence of templates capturing 1. App Idea --> 2. App Implement --> 3. App Improve. We then look to make a bigger distinction between Overview, User Guide and App Lifecycle Management but splitting each into their own Form of Templates. The whole screenshot above constitutes one instance in out App Hopper which we refer to as a Record.

Records collectively viewed via Reports

Now that we have Records, we need a way of navigating to each individual Record. Reports fulfil this prupose whilst also providing valuable aggrgeate level insight into our Business Process across all Records.

When at the top level of an App, the Left hand menu will house Table, Chart, Matrix, Card and Dashboard Reports. They may also have Lenses which are a view of the Report that has been base filtered to match specific Field value criteria. 

Table reports will hold your records that you create as line items in a table. In our example above when we navigate to the App Hopper, we land on he App Database Report. This has each of our App Hopper Records as line items in the Report and clicking on one of the Rows will take us through to the Record where we can edit the Field data via the Forms and Templates giving a process driven layout of the data capture points.

We even have Lenses added based on Implementation Readiness status so we can analyse find and update our Records more efficiently.