Working with Agency Views

Agency views and entities provide a template for your agency to design your own components for the web-based AASHTOWare Project software. Your agency can create its own entities and views to support additional business functions that might be required by your state or province, or by your agency's unique workflow. An agency view is a user interface that your agency designs to enable users to access and change data in an agency entity. An agency entity is a business entity composed of database fields that are defined by the agency.

When you create an agency view, you determine the layout and design of a custom component, including which fields are displayed and whether a field is displayed as a drop-down menu or a check box. You can create accordion lists, text boxes, and modal windows. The same user interface elements that appear on other components in the system are available to you when you design an agency view.

The Agency View Overview lists all of the agency views in the system. To access the overview, click the Agency Views link in the System Administration component.

Note: Although the settings that design an agency view are accessed through System Administration, the resulting agency view instances are accessed through the summary component for entity associated with the agency view. For example, if an agency view is associated with a contract, the agency view instance can be accessed from the Actions menu on the Contract Progress Summary.

You can locate a specific agency view by typing criteria in the Quick Find search box, or by clicking Show first 10. The system lists rows of agency views that match your criteria.

Each row includes an Actions button and values in these fields:

Name

The value displayed in the Entity field indicates the entity from which users will be able to access the agency view when it is rendered. For example, if 'Contract' is entered in the Entity field, users will be able to access the agency view from the Contract Administration Summary.

To delete an agency view from the system, select Delete from the Actions menu on the view row. You cannot delete an agency view if it has been used to enter data into the system or if it is associated with any records of the parent entity type. For example, if an agency view with Test as its parent entity is associated with a specific material test, the agency view cannot be deleted. The system shades the row gray to indicate it is marked for deletion. To reverse the delete action, click the Undo button. To save your changes, click the Save button.

To create a new agency view, select Add from the Actions menu on the component header. The system takes you to the Add Agency View component. See Adding an Agency View for more information.

To create a new agency view that is similar to an existing agency view, select Copy from the Actions menu on the view row. The system takes you to the Copy Agency View component. See Copying an Agency View for more information.

To view or change additional information about an agency view, click the Name link, or select Open from the Actions menu on the view row. See Maintaining an Agency View for more information.

To see a preview of how an agency view will be displayed in the software, select Preview Agency View from the Actions menu on the agency view row. See Previewing an Agency View for more information.

Note: Because agency views are created and customized by your agency, the online help system does not include instructions about how to use an agency view.

To view or change associations between an agency view and individual records, select Agency View Associations from the Actions menu on the agency view row. The system takes you to a different component depending on the type of entity associated with the agency view. See one of the following, as appropriate:

Sample Agency Views

The system includes four sample agency views. Your agency can use copies of these agency views to enter data, or as examples when creating other agency views. Sample agency views are read-only and cannot be associated with other records. Instead, the sample agency view and its underlying agency entities must be copied. The copies can then be modified as needed and used to enter data. The following sample agency views are available to be copied:

FACA Test Results (see Entering Test Results for Sieve Analysis)
DWR Return Quantity Tracking (see Calculating the DWR Item Posting Quantity)
Superpave Mix Design (see Maintaining a Superpave Mix Design)
Superpave Mix Design Component Materials (see Maintaining Component Materials for a Superpave Mix Design)

These sample agency views use data from sample agency entities, which are also read-only and must be copied prior to use. To determine which agency entities must be copied for use with a sample agency view, go to the Agency View Summary, and make note of the values in the Agency Entity ID field in each row in the Controls section (see Maintaining an Agency View). After these agency entities are copied, the new name for each entity must be entered in the Agency Entity ID field for the appropriate control. The following sample agency entities are available to be copied:

FACASieves
FACATest
DWRReturnQuantity
DWRReturnQtyList
MIXSUPERPAVEProp
MIXSUPERPAVECompMtls

On Create Code

The FACA Test Results agency view includes code in the On Create field that references the associated agency entities. After the agency view and agency entities are copied, you must update the last line of the code to reference the new names for the FACASieves and FACATest entities. This enables the agency view to correctly set the values for the Reference Specification Name, Reference Specification Condition, and Sieves fields when the agency view instance is created.

The sample script in the On Create field for the FACA Test Results agency view also contains a dictionary object that is available for use in the On Create field for other agency views. The AgencyEntityInstancesData object collects all of the data that will be populated on the agency view when the view is opened for the first time as an agency view instance.

AgencyEntityInstancesData is a Dictionary where:

Key: type of AgencyEntityInstance

Value: Dictionary where:

Key: string

value: object

Review the script in the On Create field for the FACA Test Results agency view for an example of how to use this dictionary object. For information about code utilities available for use in the On Create field, see Supported Utility Functions in Python Code Fields.