How to use the Data tab

The Data tab shows what your App keeps: its tables (lists of records), their fields, and how they link. On the left, the list of tables with a filter and the selected table's information (fields, links, records). On the right, three views of the selected table: Diagram, Structure and Content.

Diagram

Every table is a box, every field a row, and every link a cord between two tables. The diagram arranges itself: the most linked tables in the middle, the others around them, with as few crossing cords as possible. Click Tidy up to arrange it again after you moved things.

• Click a table to open its panel: change its fields (name, kind, required, choices, rules such as unique, minimum and maximum, a starting value), and the buttons its lists offer (add, view, edit, clone, delete, chart).
• Drag a cord from a field to another table to link them, for example a visit to its job.
• Click Save to keep your changes in the draft.

Kinds of fields

• Short and long text, formatted text, email, phone
• Number, amount, star rating
• Date, date and time
• Choice, several choices, status with coloured stages, yes / no
• Picture, file
• Link to another table of the App; link to your NIZU team members, clients, leads or projects
• Automatic number (JOB-0042), calculation, total of linked records

Structure

The selected table's fields as a grid. Change a field's name, kind, required, unique, starting value and help text right in the cell; each change is saved in your draft when you leave the cell. New field adds one; the cross removes one. New fields are marked new, changed ones changed. Choices, links, automatic numbers and calculations are set up in the Diagram, where you give them their options. Below the grid, Links and indexes lists what the table points at, what points at it, and the database indexes.

Content (administrators)

The records your team entered in a published table. Add filter rows (field, condition, value; every row must match), sort, search, and click a value to change it Enter saves, Esc cancels. It is saved exactly as if it were changed in the App: required fields, unique values, history and automatic steps all apply. New record opens the table's own form.

Good to know

• Changes reach your team only when the App is published. Publishing adds tables and fields; it never deletes or converts data.
• Removing a field hides it; its data is kept.
• Once a field holds data, add a new field rather than changing its kind.