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Fileman 22.2 Getting Started Manual

1. Notice that the components of our heading are enclosed in quotation marks so that Fileman knows we just want those words and that we aren t trying to refer to some file or field that Fileman needs to go look for Also notice that we included spaces so that the parts of our heading would be spaced apart a little It would be nice if at the heading prompt you could somehow tell Fileman to use the Print template you re working on right now But that s a bit too recursive for Fileman Instead we ll accept the default heading and save the Print template At the next prompt we can enter a caret to jump out since we don t actually want to print this right now To use this template for a heading go back into Inquire or Print to get your report Select your sort and print fields as normal Then at the heading prompt enter the name of your template Don t forget the left square bracket Heading S C COMPOSER LIST MY HEADING Enter The resulting report would look something like this March 2013 43 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display This is my heading I made it myself Hooray for me After that heading the data would begin immediately Fileman would not print the column headers or the line of dashes that we ve seen in other heading examples Why is that When you specify a heading Fileman puts you in charge You control everything You can specify a mu
2. After we name our sort Fileman asks us if we want to add a description For now we re just going to skip that so we ll accept the default answer of NO Fileman then continues with the dialog we have seen before asking us which fields to print If you want to save a sort you don t actually have to think of three fields to sort by You can tell Fileman you want to save the sort before you start You do this by entering a right square bracket at any sort by prompt Select OPTION PRINT FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter Sort by NAME Enter Sort by NAME After we type our square bracket Fileman asks us again for our sort by criteria At this point it almost looks as if the square bracket had no effect If we keep going however Fileman will prompt us for a Sort template name Sort by NAME Enter Sort by NAME ERA Enter Start with ERA FIRST Enter Within ERA sort by NAME Enter Start with NAME FIRST Enter Store in SORT Template In our examples of saving sorts we have been accepting the default start with answer of FIRST We should note however that if we chose something else Fileman will have an additional question for us when we attempt to save our sort Sort by NAME Enter March 2013 37 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display Sort by NAME ERA Enter Star
3. Clipboard The Browser uses Fileman s shared clipboard space which means you can copy text from the Browser and paste it into any word processing field using the Screen Editor For example you could generate a report view it on the Browser then copy some or all of your report and paste it into a Mailman message To use this feature press lt PF1 gt C This should bring up the following prompt Copy Text Line s to Paste Buffer gt If you would like to copy all of the text in your report you can enter an asterisk Otherwise you can enter the first and last line you would like to copy separated by a colon like this Copy Text Line s to Paste Buffer 23 10 If you would like to append your text to what s already in the clipboard rather than replacing what s in the clipboard use the letter A with your command like this Copy Text Line s to Paste Buffer gt 3 10A You can use the A with specific line numbers or with the asterisk If at any time you would like to see what s already in the clipboard press lt PF1 gt V The Browser will switch from your report to the clipboard so you can see what s there To return to your report press lt PF1 gt E You can paste the text from your clipboard into any word processing field March 2013 69 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on the Browser using the Screen Editor Place the cursor where you want
4. Do you mean ALL the fields in the file NO Well yeah What a dumb question What else could I mean March 2013 39 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display Actually there could be a field in the file that is called ALL or that starts with ALL Fileman is just making sure it understands what you mean Saving Print Criteria with Print Templates We have already learned how to save sorts Saving print criteria works much the same way For example if you choose five or more fields to print Fileman automatically asks you for the name of a Print template you d like to save And as with Sort templates you can tell Fileman that you want to save your print criteria by entering a square bracket at any print field prompt In the example below assume we have already selected our sort criteria and have moved on to the print field prompts First print field lt Enter gt First print field NAME lt Enter gt Then print field ERA lt Enter gt Then print field BIRTHDATE lt Enter gt Then print field Enter Heading S C COMPOSER LIST Enter Store print logic in template PRACTICE PRINT lt Enter gt Notice that our Print template stores not only which fields we print but also what heading we want to use In our example we accepted the default heading We ll learn how to customize headings later in this chapter Re Using Print Criteria Calling up and using a Print template
5. Enter With 499 North Enter Replace Enter 499 Northshore Boulevard ADDRESS 2 In the middle of an answer ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace 1 ore Enter With 15 Lakeside Enter Replace Enter 3015 Lakeside Boulevard ADDRESS 2 18 March 213 Chapter 3 Getting Fancy Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual At the end of an answer ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Bou Enter With Drive Enter Replace Enter 301 Bayshore Drive ADDRESS 2 Caution Replace With is a useful tool but you need to pay attention when using it Fileman will only replace the first instance of a sequence in the answer Consider this example ADDRESS 1 1026 Eastlake Avenue East Replace East Enter With West Enter Replace Enter 1026 Westlake Avenue East ADDRESS 2 Now if you meant to change the address to Westlake Avenue East that s great If you didn t well you messed up It s easy to mess up if you go too fast and don t think your answer through Keep in mind however that messing up is not the end of the world You can fix your answer and keep going as long as you re paying attention and noticing what Fileman does with your answers Jumping Around When you re in scrolling mode fields for information are presented to you one at a time In screen mode your cursor advances through the fields in a predetermined order We have alre
6. Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on the Browser eee 67 The Browser Sam AE Mees ee ese ee ee ee SE Se 67 bDtowser Faame s N Eee side EG oge eN SN ee 68 Chapter 1 fditing Rabrds WA ee ees ese Se ee Ge Se Ge Gee ee ee 71 The 01 PRE AAN ee ee ee Ge ee Gee ee ee SE Se 71 Enter or Edit File Entries Option eene 71 dua EE EE EE 72 How redo TOG Met 74 BIAIS MEE 75 Ria EE IF se OE EE EE NE N OE OE 76 b DUC DS EE H 80 Appendix A Sort and Print Qualifiers BOE EE BOE EE BOE EE Ee ee 81 Sort Qualifier Reference ee ee Re Re eene tnn eene 81 Print Qualifier Reference ees esse ee RR RA AR RA ee RA ee ee 84 OSS ANY ER H 89 Orientation Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Orientation As the name implies this manual shows first time users some basic features and options that will get them started using Fileman 22 2 The manual assumes that Fileman 22 2 is already installed and running on your system This manual is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all features available in Fileman or even all features available to users and super users Rather it is intended to walk new users through the most commonly used features and give them an idea of where to go next for more information This manual uses VA conventions for displaying mockups
7. FIRST PRINT FIELD Patient s name THEN PRINT FIELD NAME March 2013 87 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Print Qualifier Reference OR FIRST PRINT FIELD Patient s name THEN PRINT FIELD NAME X The header for the NAME field is suppressed in both examples 88 March 213 Glossary Glossary 01 Field Alternate Editor Browser Caption Command Area Data Dictionary Data Type Database Default March 2013 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual The single most important field in a file as defined by the file s creator One of the text editors available for use from Fileman Editors available vary from site to site They are entries in the ALTERNATE EDITOR file 11 2 A Screen Mode tool that allows you to view Fileman output If enabled the Browser can be selected at the device prompt or as a Fileman option In Screenman a label displayed on the screen Captions often identify fields that are to be edited In Screenman the bottom portion of the screen used to display help information and to accept user commands A record of a file s structure its elements fields and their attributes and relationships to other files Often abbreviated as DD The kind of data stored in a field Numeric computed and word processing are examples of Fileman data types An organized collection of data spanning many files Often all the files on a system
8. Input Template Internal Entry Number Kernel Key Label LAYGO Line Editor Mailman Menu Multiple MUMPS March 2013 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual A template of fields to be edited used in conjunction with the Enter or Edit File Entries option The number used to identify an entry within a file Every record has a unique internal entry number Often abbreviated as IEN A VISTA software package that functions as an intermediary between the host operating system and VISTA application packages Kernel includes installation menu security and device services One or more fields that uniquely identify a record An attribute of a field The name you usually see when encountering the field for example NAME A user s authorization to create a new entry selecting a record from a file An acronym for Learn As You Go The Fileman editor that lets you input and change text on a line by line basis The Line Editor works in scrolling mode See Screen Editor An electronic mail system e mail that allows you to send messages to and receive them from other users via the computer It is part of VISTA A list that includes the names of options from which you can select an activity A Fileman data type that allows more than one value for a single entry See Subfile The computer language used by Fileman and throughout VISTA The acronym MUMPS stands for 91 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Gl
9. Typical DA Ea Ses nnne nnne ee EE Se ER ee Ee 22 Mour Cuv o e 23 sed oo EE EE N ee 25 el ie Ti SE ER N EE N 25 Cites Es E 25 6 EN AAR 28 Inquire to File Entries OPHON ee esse see sesse ese sae see se ke Re SEE Re ERG Ke Re Re ERA Re Re Ee Ee 28 Chapter of Pent OP Display ess nadie eR codo ud s Ra RR ped aru 31 A W rd Apout Printing N AE EE N EN 31 Printing a Default Kenmerk ENE EE eet bn EE Ee GER 31 Custom Reports SONE es issie ses Dae BA DES eere teri ES ER Ee Eg EDE EN DE 33 Custom Reports Choosing Print Fields esee 39 Custom Reports Final TOUehES irisse ske Ee Rebum ed cake eta sia Sie ie 41 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options sese 46 Comp ted olie D 47 Choosi Naro M 47 More Sorting DOO pedo decia ee qur EN dria ee ta dira 48 More Printing ODpUDDS iu eire pertinentes Ern PAR Re ventas ge Be BE Ge ee eke 49 Bean SFO ales aceites tente estricto Depp E ioo etnies 51 Sharing Templates eere iare illit ion 54 Gl ees ds ES Oo etta 56 How Searching Works C MO 56 Entering Conditions ea bb ABL os 56 Combining Conditions MAR se EE ee see sesse es 58 Search Templates 9888 4 0 0 62 Formatting Output cones 63 Using Your Templates Ms eese ee coepto see RE Ge ee Re 64 Searching Multiples 9 amp esse ees 65
10. When Fileman finishes listing the baroque composers it will print a new subhead for ERA CLASSICAL and list the classical composers Saving Sorts with Sort Templates This sorting thing is kind of neat Let s try another one Sort by NAME ERA Enter Start with ERA FIRST Enter Within ERA Sort by BIRTHDATE Enter Start with BIRTHDATE FIRST Enter Within BIRTHDATE Sort by NAME Enter Start with NAME FIRST Enter Store in SORT Template Wait what Fileman is asking us a new question Whenever you sort a file by three or more criteria Fileman automatically asks if you want to save your sort This is helpful if for example you want to perform a complex sort as part of a regularly scheduled custom report If you do not want to save the sort press Return without entering information and Fileman will continue with the next prompt However if we do want to save this sort all we have to do is give ita name We can pick just about any name we want as long as it s less than 30 characters Our template will be stored under our user ID so we don t have to worry about choosing a name somebody else is already using 36 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Store in SORT Template PRACTICE SORT Enter Are you adding PRACTICE SORT as a new sort template Y Enter DESCRIPTION No existing text Edit NO Enter First print field
11. a page somewhere in the middle of the report would look like this Composer MENDELSSOHN FELIX MENDELSSOHN FELIX ROMANTIC MONTEVERDI CLAUDIO BAROQUE MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS CLASSICAL OFFENBACH JACQUES ROMANTIC Custom Footers You can use a Print template to put a custom footer on your report To tell Fileman that your template should be used as a footer and not a header precede it with a minus sign Heading S C COMPOSER LIST MY FOOTER Enter When you use a custom footer like this Fileman suppresses the heading just as it does when you use a custom heading If you want your report to include both a heading and a footer you will need to specify both Heading S C COMPOSER LIST MY HEADING MY FOOTER Enter When you specify both a heading and a footer you do need to use that right square bracket to close off the name of your heading Otherwise Fileman will think you re trying to call up a template called My Heading My Footer which you probably don t have March 2013 45 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Remember Inquire to File Entries We discussed it briefly in Chapter 5 essentially showing how to get a quick report by accepting the defaults You can of course do more with this option by responding differently to the prompts If you remember here s how we selected t
12. print field prompt The CAPTIONED Print template prints each field that has data in order just like our example in Chapter 5 When you answer with ALL Fileman will still attempt to put all the fields on the same row even if there are enough fields to make that impractical Custom Reports Final Touches After you establish how you re sorting your fields and which fields you re printing Fileman asks you about the heading and then about the device you want to use Each of these prompts gives you further opportunities to customize your report March 2013 41 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display Heport Headings The heading in a report is what is printed at the top of each report page Ordinarily your heading consists of the report title the date and time of the report and a page number It also includes column headers for the fields you selected as shown in the example below COMPOSER LIST NOV 21 2012 11 10 PAGE 1 NAME ERA The headings prompt gives you a few simple options for quick customization For example you might not know whether there will actually be any records that meet your selection criteria If you enter an S at the headings prompt you tell Fileman not to bother printing a heading at all if there aren t any records found You can also enter a C at this prompt and Fileman will print the sort criteria in the heading like this COMPOSER LIST NOV 21 2012 11 10 P
13. BIRTHPLACE KHACHATURIAN ARAM JUNE 6 1903 TBLISI SHOSTAKOVICH DMITRI SEPTEMBER 25 1906 ST PETERSBURG BARBER SAMUEL MARCH 9 1910 WEST CHESTER BRITTEN BENJAMIN NOVEMBER 22 1913 LOWESTOFT BERNSTEIN LEONARD AUGUST 25 1918 LAWRENCE and so on The Nuts and Bolts of Sorting We all have a vague idea of what it means to sort a list For much of what you want to do however you probably want more than a vague idea Here are some specifics about how sorting works in Fileman Fields are sorted from the lowest value to the highest value what is often called ascending order With some fields such as numeric and date fields this sort is fairly straightforward 34 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Set of code fields are sorted by their internally stored code It probably won t be immediately obvious Free text fields as you might imagine have a few things to keep in mind First the sort is case sensitive with capital letters sorting first For example BRAHMS would sort before Bach because capital R sorts before lowercase a Itis also important to note that a free text entry that contains only numeric characters no alphabetic characters or punctuation will be sorted as a number and placed ahead of anything that includes letters or punctuation For any kind of field Fileman will not include records with blank or null values in the sort If for example we sorted our COMPOSER file b
14. Go to BIRTHDATE LAST Enter Within BIRTHDATE Sort by NAME Enter First print field NAME Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE Enter Then print field BIRTHPLACE Enter Then print field Enter There are a couple of interesting things happening here Notice that when we entered something other than FIRST as a response to start with Fileman next asked us where we wanted to stop with a default answer of LAST Also notice that Fileman asked us how we wanted to sort within March 2013 33 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display BIRTHDATE Essentially this is Fileman s way of asking if I find two composers with the same birthdate what should I do That seems clear enough but why is it asking us this when it didn t ask before In our earlier sort we accepted the default sort by field which is NAME As it turns out we accepted more than that we also agreed to let Fileman figure out for itself how to sort within NAME When we chose a different field Fileman also had to ask us what to sort by next One last thing to notice it s very unlikely that there s actually a composer with a birthdate of January 1 1901 That s all right that s just the date where we want Fileman to start looking It won t get confused if there are no entries with that exact field value The resulting list would look like this COMPOSER NOV 14 2012 11 51 PAGE 1 NAME BIRTHDATE
15. That is we could ask for a list of composers not named Johan or Johann After we enter A Fileman does ask us for another possibility Since our only other possibility with just the one condition is not A we ll go ahead and press Return to end this step IF A Enter OR Enter 58 March 213 Chapter 8 Search Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual A Better Example Don t you hate it when manuals give you the easiest possible example then leave it up to you to figure out what to do when it gets complicated Yeah so do we So let s come up with a more complicated set of criteria and see how we would define them and how we would combine them Let s say we re looking for a list of composers who are either named Johan or Johann or are Romantic composers born after 1850 or were born in London We have no idea why anyone would want this list but in medicine you will do searches at least as complex as this so it s a good example The first thing to do before we even touch the keyboard is figure out the logic of what we re asking We have three search conditions The Johan one we already know how to do We also have to look for composers born in London which is a pretty straightforward search We have to look for Romantic composers born after 1850 You know what We don t have three search conditions we have four Because Romantic era and born after 1850 are two conditions not one even though we i
16. all about data entering it editing it retrieving it sorting it printing it making it into reports Although Fileman was written for VISTA it does not need to be used with VISTA It can be installed as a standalone database management system Before You Start In order to use Fileman you should have a basic working understanding of VISTA including how to sign on how to navigate using menus and how to access help by typing one or two question marks Because Fileman is a database system you should also have a basic understanding of what a March 2013 3 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Introduction database is and the meaning of basic database elements such as field record and file Before starting on the second section of this book you should make sure that you are reasonably familiar with the material in the first section It is not necessary that you already have a super user job title just that you are interested in learning the material 4 March 213 Part 1 End Users Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Part 1 End Users Chapter 1 Interacting with Fileman As an end user you do not interact directly with Fileman Since it is an infrastructure package the only ones who deal directly with Fileman are super users and programmers So why learn about it in the first place As we said in the Introduction Fileman underlies all of the packages you do use Learning the basics of Fileman means getting a h
17. appear at the top of our report and which device to send it to We ll accept the default heading and the default device which is our computer screen Fileman s default format for printing files is a table with the field names as column heads Each page of the report has a header containing the file name the date and time the report was printed and the page number 32 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual COMPOSER LIST NOV 14 2012 10 32 PAGE 1 NAME BIRTHDATE BIRTHPLACE BACH CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL MARCH 8 1714 WEIMAR BACH JOHANN CHRISTIAN SEPTEMBER 5 1735 LEIPZIG BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN MARCH 31 1685 EISENACH BARBER SAMUEL MARCH 9 1910 WEST CHESTER BEETHOVEN LUDVIG VAN DECEMBER 1770 BONN BERNSTEIN LEONARD AUGUST 25 1918 LAWRENCE Our list of composers would go on longer but this gives the general idea of what it would look like The Print File Entries option provides broadly two tools for creating customized reports the sort by prompt and the print field prompt Let s look at both of these in a little more detail Custom Reports Sorting As we mentioned above you can sort by any field you choose You can also start your printout with any value of the field you choose For example we could sort our composers by birthdate and limit our list to those born after 1900 Sort by NAME BIRTHDATE Enter Start with BIRTHDATE FIRST JANUARY 1 1901 Enter
18. as the name suggests are derived from the values of other fields they are almost always locked to prevent changes MUMPS fields are where programmers can enter commands in the MUMPS programming language something you will not be called on to do Date fields are designed to hold calendar dates You can enter dates in several formats in fact Fileman 22 2 has added even more formats that will be accepted Type a question mark at the prompt to see all the formats available Some date fields will accept a partial date the month and year only or just the year Again typing one question mark at the prompt will show you your options Fileman is pretty smart If you use a two digit number for the year Fileman interprets it to mean a future date if the date would be within twenty years from now For example if you typed 24 for the year Fileman would interpret that as 2024 If it would be more than 20 years Fileman assumes March 2013 9 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 2 Field Types the date is from the past For example if you typed 54 Fileman would interpret that as 1954 In addition Fileman provides some handy tricks and shortcuts for entering dates You can enter the word TODAY or just the letter T and Fileman will automatically put in today s date You can add or subtract days weeks or months to TODAY and Fileman will do those calculations as well Examples T 3D Three days from today T 3 Three days fro
19. constitute that system s database A computer provided response to a question or 89 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Device Prompt Edit Window Entry Entry Number Field Field Number File Form Free Text Identifier 90 Glossary prompt In Fileman the default is often the most common answer or the most recent answer A prompt that allows you to specify where your output should be printed Devices include your computer screen the spooler a network printer and the Browser if enabled In Screenman the area in which you enter or edit data Itis highlighted with either reverse video or an underline In Screen Editor the area in which you enter and edit text the area between the status bar and the ruler A record in a file Entry and record are used interchangeably See Internal Entry Number In a record a specified area used to hold values The specifications of each Fileman field are documented in the file s data dictionary The unique number used to identify a field in a file A set of related records or entries treated as a unit In Screenman a group of one or more pages that comprise a complete transaction A data type that can contain any printable characters A field used to identify a record sometimes in conjunction with other identifiers Some identifiers are required meaning that the record will not be saved if the field is a null value March 213 Glossary
20. field that came before it The X suffix is often used to add a literal caption to a field 86 March 213 Print Qualifier Reference Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual field xxx Customize header The default header for columns of a report is the field label for fields or a computed expression for on the fly computed expressions To change the header follow the field label with a semicolon and the column header you want Enclose the header in quotes When possible spaces wrap the substitute header within a print width obtained from the field s data definition For example THEN PRINT FIELD DOB Date of Birth THEN PRINT FIELD DOB Date of Birth The first specification prints the header on two lines the second prints it on one line with underscores To suppress the header add to the field field Yn Set start row position You can start printing a field on any line on the page If n is positive the field is printed on that line as counted from the top of the page If it is negative it is printed on that line as counted from the bottom When specifying Yn you must account for any page header that is displayed Insert a literal At the PRINT FIELD prompt enclose a free text literal in quotes The literal is inserted into the body of the report For example the following specifications begin each entry s display with a caption and NAME
21. is incredibly powerful And it has the potential to create some truly spectacular errors if it is not used carefully For example when we stuffed Albuquerque into the city field we needed to be careful about which records we selected If we had begun our edit with ALBA rather than ALBAQ we could have moved hundreds of innocent patients from Albany to Albuquerque in an instant We can also use three slashes to delete all field values for the records we select To do this we follow the three slashes with an Q like this Then edit field ERA Return WARNING THIS MEANS AUTOMATIC DELETION If we use the to stuff a null value Fileman warns us that this will delete information that may already be entered in the field Using Templates We mentioned earlier that the Edit entries by prompt you receive when you use LOOP is very similar to the Sort by prompts we ve seen before They are so similar in fact that you can actually use a Sort template with LOOP to choose the fields you want to edit and the records within those fields This is a handy option if you happen to have a Sort template that March 2013 75 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records specifies the fields and records you want to edit However there is also a template specifically designed for use while editing Input Templates By now we ve learned how to create Sort templates Print templates and Search templates w
22. next If we wanted we could choose several fields which depending on the situation might be preferable to going through all the fields for each record we look at Why are we choosing to edit the NAME field If we don t we won t see the name of the composer we re editing We d just see a field labeled ERA and we d have to guess which composer it was It s been a while since the sorting chapter so we ll remind you that the at March 2013 73 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records the Start with prompt tells Fileman to start with the null values which are the ones we want to edit The null values sort to the top of the list so if we start with them we want to end with FIRST that is with the first record that has a non null ERA field How to Stuff a Field This section is about stuffing field values which honestly sounds a little rude All it means though is that Fileman allows you to specify a default value for the fields you want to edit To illustrate let s revisit our ERA editing example The Romantic era was pretty big for composers it is the most likely response to the ERA prompt To save a little time we could specify ROMANTIC as our default answer during our edit like this Edit which field ALL NAME Return Then edit field ERA ROMANTIC Return Then edit field Return After typing the name of the field ERA we enter two slashes followed by the value w
23. not exist It won t give you a message like you don t have permission to access that file it will just give you two question marks as if it has never even heard of the file This is actually on purpose for security reasons A hacker would not be able to figure out which files a system has by trying some likely sounding file names and seeing which ones are not found and which ones are you don t have access If Fileman reacts exactly the same way to both scenarios the system is more secure Of course it s a little disconcerting to ask for a file you know perfectly well is in there only to have Fileman tell you it isn t Don t panic You haven t broken Fileman you just don t have permission to access that file Talk to your supervisor or IT department to get the access you need There are four levels of access to Fileman files Read access you can see what s in the files but you can t add or change anything Write access you can edit records but you can t add or delete them LAYGO access you can add but not delete records Delete access you can delete records Delete access is the highest security level because deleting a record is one of the the most drastic things you can do in a database Incorrect changes can be fixed but it s very difficult to undo a whole record deletion 26 March 213 Chapter 4 Going Backstage Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual When you speak to your supervisor or IT department about
24. of sensitive data in illustrations and screen captures The first three digits prefix of any social security numbers SSN will begin with either 000 or 666 Patient and user names will be formatted as FMPATIENT N and FMUSER N respectively where N represents the first name as a number spelled out Screen captures and computer source code are shown in a non proportional font and enclosed within a box The user s responses to online prompts will be boldface Most screen captures are shown in scrolling mode This is because scrolling mode prompts and responses are easier to follow on paper or in PDF form Most of what is shown in scrolling mode can also be done in screen mode list mode or with a GUI it will just look a little different This manual is in two sections because it is intended for two slightly different audiences The first section contains information for end users The second section contains information for super users a general term that encompasses Application Coordinators CACs ADPACS and those with similar roles March 2013 1 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Orientation Getting Help Fileman 22 2 includes online help that is available to you while you are in VISTA In general whenever you are at a prompt you can type one or two question marks for additional information If you need additional help with Fileman contact your supervisor your Application Coordinator or the IT represent
25. set to screen editor Using the Screen Editor The screen editor as the name implies provides you with a whole screen on which you can edit your text The figure below illustrates a blank word processing screen If you immediately begin typing your response will appear in the large area in the center of the screen 12 March 213 Chapter 2 Field Types Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Wrap Mode Name of WORD PROCESSING is set on field being edited WRAP INSERT lt FIELD NAME gt lt PFl gt H HELP Insert Mode lt PFI H displays help is set on on all Screen Editor commands This is the area where text can be entered Location of left Tab stops T Location of right margin lt margin gt mzz z2z 2 Tz2z222 2T222222 T2222222T22222z22T2222222T22222 22T2222 22T22 22 T Scr 1 of 52 Ln 1 of 977 Col 1 The bottom line with current screen line and column numbers is ordinarily hidden lt PF1 gt toggles display of this line All commands in the screen editor begin by pressing the lt PF1 gt key Pressing this key tells the screen editor that what comes next is a command and not a letter to be typed into the response The odds are pretty good that your computer doesn t actually have a lt PF1 gt key on its keyboard but don t panic Your IT department has almost certainly mapped the lt PF1 gt key to a different key or combination of keys that you can
26. the Browser Browser Features The Browser enables you to scroll back and forth through your data a feature that is somewhat hit and miss in the traditional roll and scroll environment Other features include copy and paste into a different document and the ability to search for a specific text string The Browser s features are described in more detail below Navigating As with Screenman applications and the Screen Editor navigation in the Browser is handled from your keyboard Here are the available commands To Press Scroll up or down one lt ArrowUp gt and lt ArrowDown gt line at a time Scroll right 22 columns sArrowRight Scroll to rightmost edge lt PF1 gt lt ArrowRight gt Scroll left 22 columns lt ArrowLeft gt Scroll to leftmost edge PF1 cArrowlLeft Page Down lt PF1 gt lt ArrowDown gt lt NextScreen gt or lt PageDown gt Page Up lt PF1 gt lt ArrowUp gt lt PrevScreen gt or lt PageUp gt Go to Top lt PF1 gt T Go to Bottom lt PF1 gt B Go to specific line lt PF1 gt G screen or column At the prompt enter a number which you can precede with S screen L line or C column The cursor is re positioned at the corresponding screen line or column If you enter a number only screen is assumed 68 March 213 Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on the Browser Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Exit PFI E or lt PF1 gt Q
27. to users You can search for specific kinds of data and create and save your own reports You can do data cleanup to fix mistakes that have made their way into the database You can help your site s programmers custom tailor VISTA to better suit your facility and your department Super User Access Super user is a catch all term encompassing CACs ADPACs Application Coordinators and similar titles Different facilities use different terminology to describe their super users but basically super users are the ones who manage VISTA for their service area If you are interested in learning more about Fileman and your job title doesn t yet designate you as a super user you are still welcome to read this section Super users can be given access to Fileman features and options that are not available to regular users Your supervisor or IT department can help March 2013 25 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 4 Going Backstage you get this access if you don t have it already Getting super user access to Fileman however is only the first step Fileman as the name suggests manages files In order to use Fileman s super user features you need to have access to at least one of these files Each file in your facility s VISTA system has its own separate security so access can be given one file at a time If you use a super user option and ask for a file you don t have access to Fileman will react as though that file does
28. what happens Here is a secret VISTA programmers can add spacebar recall to just about any prompt you encounter If you find yourself really wishing that a particular prompt had a spacebar recall you can ask for it Contact your IT department and see what they say Typical Data Entry Session So far we have discussed responding to individual prompts Here is an example of a typical data entry session The example is characteristic of editing data in many VISTA applications Select Patient Name or SSN FMPATIENT Enter 25 01 12 41 000456789 COLLATERAL Height 5 4 Enter Weight 150 22 March 213 Chapter 3 Getting Fancy Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Date Weight Taken TODAY Enter MAY 17 2013 Usual Weight 145 Wrist Circumference cm Enter Frame Size SMALL MEDIUM LARGE MED Enter Calculation of Ideal Body Weight H Hamwi M Metropolitan 83 S Spinal Cord Injury E Enter Manually Method S Enter Extent of Injury P Paraplegic Q Quadriplegic Select P lt Enter gt Select Ideal Weight 109 118 114 lb lt Enter gt Does Patient have an Amputation NO lt Enter gt Do you wish Anthropometric Assessment NO lt Enter gt Collecting laboratory data Calculate Energy Requirements Based On 1 Actual Body Weight 2 Ideal Body Weight 3 Obese Calculation Choose 1 lt Enter gt Comments No existing text Edit NO lt Enter gt Do you w
29. which parts need to be replaced Fileman will respond with a With prompt allowing you to type in the replacement text Here is an example ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Bay Enter With North Enter Replace In this example we re asking Fileman to replace the word Bay with the word North Fileman responds with another Replace prompt so we could March 2013 17 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 3 Getting Fancy change more about the original address if we wanted Otherwise we can press Return without entering any text to signal to Fileman that we re done replacing The whole dialog would then look like this ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Bay Enter With North Enter Replace Enter 301 Northshore Boulevard ADDRESS 2 So if the address you want looks nothing like the default address do you have to type the entire default in order to replace it You do not You can enter ellipses three periods to indicate that you would like to replace the entire answer ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Enter With 5995 Folsom Street Enter Replace Enter 5995 Folsom Street ADDRESS 2 More About Ellipses In the above example we showed you how to use ellipses to replace an entire answer You can also use ellipses to replace part of an answer At the beginning of an answer ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Bay
30. working with for the past few chapters An interesting aspect of this is that you can augment your search with the same sort and select options we ve already discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 If you choose this option Fileman does the sort and select first then runs your search on the resulting selected list Print Number of Matches Found Returning to our original question the one that started the chapter we wanted to know how many composers were named Johan or Johann We didn t necessarily need to see a list of them we just wanted to know how many there were We could of course just print them out and count them manually but Fileman has another option for us To print the number of matches found without printing any of the matched entries we can just press Return at the first print field prompt That is we don t specify any fields to print Fileman responds with the number of records found without actually showing them to us March 2013 63 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search Using Your Templates Once you have created a Search template you have two options for how to use it You can use it in the Search File Entries option like this Select OPTION SEARCH FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter A Search for COMPOSER field PRACTICE SEARCH Enter But remember what we said earlier A Search template is really just a special kind of Sort template Because of
31. works much the same way as using a Sort template At the first print field prompt enter a left square bracket and the name of the template you want to use If you want to see a list of possible templates enter a left square bracket followed by a question mark Here is an example First print field lt Enter gt Answer with PRINT TEMPLATE Do you want the entire PRINT TEMPLATE list Y Enter CHOOSE FROM CAPTIONED ERA PRINT 40 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual PRACICE PRINT As with the Sort templates you see a list of all the Print templates you have access to The CAPTIONED Print Template In addition to the Print templates you created and the Print templates your co workers have given you access to there is a standard Print template that is available to everyone who uses Fileman It is the CAPTIONED template and it prints all fields in an order established by Fileman Invoking the captioned template looks like this First print field CAPTIONED Enter Include COMPUTED fields N Y R B NO We ve seen the prompt about computed fields before back in Chapter 5 We ll discuss what all of these options mean further in the manual for now you can just accept the default answer of NO Here s an interesting question What s the difference between entering ALL at the first print field prompt and entering CAPTIONED at the first
32. your templates There are several options here some of which depend on what kind of access you yourself have For now we ll just accept the defaults More information on this feature can be found in the Fileman Advanced User Manual Next Fileman brings up the fields you selected one at a time Again this applies to both Print and Sort templates Sort by ERA Enter Start with ERA FIRST Enter Within ERA sort by NAME You can change any of these parameters and Fileman will save your changes when you are done With Print templates specifically there is an additional feature you can use You can insert a new field at any point in the sequence by typing a caret before the field name Here is an example First print field NAME Enter Then print field ERA Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE BIRTHPLACE Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE Enter 52 March 213 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual When we use the caret with BIRTHPLACE Fileman inserts that field before the BIRTHDATE field and keeps the BIRTHDATE field as the default for the next field to print By contrast if we didn t use the caret we would see this First print field NAME Enter Then print field ERA Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE BIRTHPLACE Enter Then print field We d have to type BIRTHDATE in the last field In this ex
33. 22 2 Getting Started Manual options available to regular VISTA users Luckily there s a way to tell Fileman that you want to look at a whole bunch of records At the select prompt for choosing a record enter the command LOOP This tells Fileman to go through or loop through a whole series of records without you having to select each one Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Return Input to what file COMPOSER Return Edit which field ALL Return Select COMPOSER NAME LOOP Return Edit entries by NAME The Edit entries by prompt is very similar to the Sort by prompt we ve seen before We can use it to sort and select a group of records to be edited We ve seen in at least one of our examples that not all the composers in our COMPOSER file have the ERA field filled in Let s find those and fix them Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Return Input to what file COMPOSER Return Edit which field ALL NAME Return Then edit field ERA Return Then edit field Return Select COMPOSER NAME LOOP Return Edit entries by NAME ERA Return Start with ERA FIRST Return Go to ERA LAST FIRST Return There are a couple of things to note in this example First instead of opting to edit ALL fields we re limiting our edit to the NAME and ERA fields When we select a specific field rather than ALL Fileman asks us which field we d like to edit
34. AGE 1 Sort Criteria BIRTHDATE from January 1 1901 to LAST NAME ERA You can use both of these together entering SC tells Fileman to print the sort criteria and to print no heading if there are no records to print You can also enter an at this prompt to tell Fileman not to print any heading at all Custom Headings You can completely customize the heading that appears at the top of your report You do this with a Print template This seems a bit counterintuitive at first Aren t Print templates supposed 42 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual to hold which fields you print The answer is yes but Yes but they can also hold the information you would like to appear in your heading Your first step in creating a custom heading then is to get to where you can create and save a Print template You can do this using either Inquire to File Entries or Print File Entries Once you reach the first print field prompt enter a right square bracket to tell Fileman you want to save a Print template Then enter the components of your heading in the print field prompts like this First print field Enter First print field This is my heading Enter Then print field I made it myself Enter Then print field Hooray for me Enter Then print field Enter Heading S C COMPOSER LIST Enter Store print logic in template MY HEADING Enter
35. ASTIAN Choose 1 3 3 BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN Another one lt Enter gt After we select the first record Fileman prompts us for another one If we type in HAYDN and press the return key Fileman responds with the full name As with select prompts elsewhere in VISTA if there is more than one record that matches what we type in Fileman asks us to choose one record from a list In this example typing BACH yielded a list of three possible Bachs When we choose number 3 Fileman fills in the full name When we re done choosing our composers we press the return key without entering information This signals to Fileman that we re done picking records and we re ready to move on to the next steps Standard Captioned Output Yes Enter Include COMPUTED fields N Y R B No Enter Display audit trail No Enter What are we being asked here The first question is asking whether we want to accept Fileman s default format for displaying our composers In standard captioned output all fields that contain data are displayed on your computer in a format determined by Fileman If you answer No to this question you can choose which fields to show how to arrange them and whether to display them on your screen or print them on a printer For now though we re just going to accept the default Next Fileman asks if we want to include computed fields There are several March 2013 29 Fileman 22 2 Getting Sta
36. File Manager 22 2 Getting Started Manual March 2013 Fileman Lab Agile Project Yy X vista Expertise Network 4 T TigerTech Tireless OCopyright 2013 by VISTA Expertise Network Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3 0 Details are available at http creativecommons ore licenses by sa 3 0 Revision History Date Description Language Authors January 2013 Version 22 2 English US Kathy Ice and Frederick D S release Marshall based on the work of Tami Winn Michael Ogi Thom Blom Susan Strack Jack Schram and Gary Beuschel Contents Orientation P aoe ineeie reien ereis eiieeii aed eieiei 1 Gerines Hel Perasa ee a 2 TIO OCU OI MR MN net 3 EENS IG Es RR a aa 3 Before YOU Statte sesse etu an ciliis m 3 Part 1 End Users sessies sekeres de cio iir eN certet 5 Chapter 1 Interacting with Fileman 4 99 Nel eene 5 Your User Inter ide es ese ii Eee 5 Responding to Prompls ooo am 6 Chapter 2 Field Types 92BB 599 9 Using VISTA s Word Processing ToO sss 12 Chapter 3 Getting Fancy esse AE ese ese se ee ee ee Ge Ge ee ee 16 Partial Responses Wese ese 16 Longer Default Responses f MA ee ee 17 Jumping Aroudiif ME 19 Required Fields Required Identifiers and Key Fields 21 More At Field Ds Weiss nen 21
37. Matches MATCHES Numeric free text MUMPS computed and date time fields Less than lt Numeric computed set of codes free text and date time fields Equals All data except word processing Greater than gt Numeric computed set of codes free text and date time fields After we specify our contains search Fileman prompts us for the B conditions like this A Search for COMPOSER field NAME lt Enter gt A Condition lt Enter gt Contains March 2013 57 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search A Contains NAME JOHAN Enter B Search for COMPOSER field Enter We don t have a B condition so we press Return to tell Fileman that we re done entering conditions Combining Conditions After the search conditions have been established Fileman next asks how to combine them There are several options but let s start with our simple example A Search for COMPOSER field NAME Enter A Condition Enter Contains A Contains NAME JOHAN Enter B Search for COMPOSER field Enter IF A Enter With the if prompt Fileman is saying okay I have the search conditions now how do I apply them Our response says if condition A is true that is if the composer s name contains JOHAN then show me the record We could also enter A or A both of which mean not A
38. TICE SEARCH template like this Select OPTION SEARCH FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter A Search for COMPOSER field PRACTICE SEARCH Enter Store results of search in template After we specify our search template Fileman asks us how to store the results This prompt is the key to whether or not our snapshot gets updated If we press Return here without entering any information Fileman shows us the updated search results but does not update the snapshot If we instead enter PRACTICE SEARCH Fileman has a new prompt for us A Search for COMPOSER field PRACTICE SEARCH Enter Store results of search in template PRACTICE SEARCH Enter Data already stored there OK to purge NO If we answer YES at this prompt Fileman will update our snapshot Searching Multiples In the User section of this manual we mentioned select prompts Select prompts are often used with multiples fields within a record that can store more than one value For example a patient record might have a DIAGNOSIS field set up as a multiple so it could contain several different diagnoses In our imaginary COMPOSER file let s imagine that each composer has a field called OPUS set up as a multiple which lists the composer s works March 2013 65 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search In a multiple each entry or subfile can have its own subfields For example our OPUS
39. ady discussed how you can skip fields by pressing Return without entering information However you can also jump from the current field to another field either an earlier field you already finished or a later field you need to get to To jump enter an up arrow or caret and then the first few letters of the March 2013 19 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 3 Getting Fancy field you want In the following example the user jumps from the SSN field to the date of birth field SSN 000123123 DATE OF BIRTH Enter DATE OF BIRTH To get a list of the fields to which you can jump enter a caret and a question mark at any field prompt Jumping Out You can also use your up arrow to jump out of a record altogether For example let s say you selected a patient record to edit then realized you had the wrong patient You can type an up arrow by itself at any field prompt to jump out of this patient s record and select another one SSN 000123123 Enter Select PATIENT NAME Entering the up arrow by itself to exit a given function is a convention used throughout VISTA applications Cancel Usually when you ask VISTA and by extension Fileman to look up or retrieve information for you you get a response almost instantly If traffic is heavy it may take as long as a second If it seems that a search is taking too long it may be an indication that there s a problem w
40. ample it wouldn t be a big deal It however you were trying to insert a print field in say the second position when you had five more fields to go re typing all those fields would get a little tedious Using the caret to insert a field can save you time Once you have finished updating your fields Fileman gives you another prompt Store in SORT Template There is no default answer here for reasons we ll explain in a moment You can however use spacebar recall to bring up the name of your template or the new name of your template if you changed it at the Name prompt Alternatively you can type a different name for your template Typing a new template name here works much like the save as option in many commercial software packages You will have a new template with the new name but your old template will still be there Creating a Temporary Edit You can edit a Sort or Print template and use the template one time without saving the changes You might want to do this if you have a one time need to create or print a report that is similar to a template you have saved but would require a few changes To do this enter yes at the want to edit prompt At the Name March 2013 53 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options prompt keep the template name the way it is Then make whatever changes to the fields you need in order to create your one time report After yo
41. at last bracket if we don t want to What if we forgot the name of our Sort template We can ask Fileman We 38 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual do this by entering a left bracket and a question mark at the first sort by prompt OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter SORT BY NAME Enter Answer with SORT TEMPLATE Do you want the entire SORT TEMPLATE list Y Enter CHOOSE FROM CAROL S SORT KATHY S SORT PRACTICE SORT RICK S SORT What s going on here Carol s sort Rick s sort Where did those come from A Sort template created by one user can be shared with other users Entering at the prompt calls up a list of all the Sort templates available to you whether you created them or whether somebody else did After we choose PRACTICE SORT Fileman prompts us to designate the print fields as before Hey can t we save the print fields part as well We can using another template We ll learn more about that in a moment Custom Reports Choosing Print Fields After you have completed the select process Fileman asks you to list the fields you want displayed We have already seen how to choose fields by typing their label If you enter a single question mark at the prompt a list of all the fields in the file is displayed You can print all the fields in a file by entering ALL uppercase at the First print field prompt Fileman next asks
42. ative for your service If those are not good resources check with the OSEHRA community at www osehra org You should be able to find help from more experienced users or programmers A more in depth discussion of the basics of VISTA s menu and data entry systems is available in Getting Started in VISTA a book available from www vistaexpertise net 2 March 213 Introduction Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Introduction What is Fileman In discussing what Fileman is it is probably best to begin with what Fileman isn t Fileman isn t a clinical package like Laboratory or Pharmacy and it isn t an administrative package like IFCAP Integrated Funds Distribution Control Point Activity Accounting and Procurement Fileman is an infrastructure package meaning it is part of what makes VISTA run Programmers use the features in Fileman when creating those other packages Lab and Pharmacy and IFCAP and so on Because the same infrastructure packages and tools are used throughout VISTA similar commands keystrokes and shortcuts can be used in all of them In learning to use the features in Fileman you are learning to use features in all of the other packages Fileman is the shorter more informal name of the package File Manager is its formal name As you may have guessed from the name the specific part of the infrastructure that File Manager handles is files That is Fileman manages VISTA s massive database Fileman commands are
43. bout computed fields Until now we have just accepted the default of N Here are your other options and what they mean You can answer Y to see all computed fields This might include totals subtotals averages and so on You can answer R to see the record number Every record in your file has a record number even though you normally do not see it Fileman assigns these record numbers automatically every time a new record is entered If you would like to see these record numbers but not the other computed fields averages and so on this is the option to choose You can answer B to see both the computed fields and the record number assigned by Fileman What if you only want to see some of your computed fields but not all of them The place to handle that is not the computed fields prompt You would want to select those fields at the print fields prompts and create a Print template if you believe you ll need to select the same fields again Choosing a Device After choosing your print fields and answering the computed fields prompt you are next asked for the output device The default is your HOME device which is usually your computer screen You can however enter the name of a printer if you want to print out your report You can also send your report to a spooler so that you can print more than one copy If you type a question mark at the device prompt you will see a list of March 2013 47 Fileman 22 2 Gett
44. ch 213 Chapter 10 Editing Records Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Qualifier Action field xxx Replace the field s label with a literal string during an editing session field T Replace a field s label with its title during an editing session field REQ Require a response to a field that is usually not required field DUP Save responses for later use with spacebar recall You can combine specifiers by separating them them with semicolons like this Then edit field DATE OF BIRTH T REQ lt Return gt Creating Special Prompts Normally Fileman refers to fields by their label A label is a specific attribute belonging to a field which is set by the programmer when the field is first created The field label is what you usually see when sorting editing or printing files For example our imaginary COMPOSER file has fields labeled NAME ERA BIRTHDATE and so on Two of the edit qualifiers allow you to show the user a field to edit but use something other than the field label to tell the user which field it is For example we might have the user edit the BIRTHDATE field but specify different text for them to see like this Edit which field BIRTHDATE DOB lt Return gt Then the user would see this March 2013 77 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records DOB Why would you do this Maybe you have reason to think that you
45. e S ANN UE eR number of matches ssssss 63 select BrompIE isse de ee 7 16 22 set of codes fields 11 60 sort Qualifiers Sono bes sates 48 81 GORING S nA Cotto GN MUR 33 SelBetItIgL uo stib ud pe rq meee 33 48 Sort order essere peste 34 48 spacebar recall ese meesc ee oue eee p tn 22 standard captioned output 29 lees EE EE EE estan 35 SUppt eSsIgi s acus de EE Re ee 49 SUPE USET rete ot aec dace eR 1 23 teHmiplales Ed vesc BE hr tut ea captioned auus iuit oce tse Frase a Ute 41 li coe sec pte a tete 5 MPU M EE CERE 76 DEO assi Aeon ct eum vot Se aS 40 52 Sie AE nes re e tle nna 62 STETI KO a diee nib spat e bet addet 64 risit NE M S 54 SOU x nee ee DE ER Se 36 TURTLES ED EG bise iu 56 variable pointer fields esse see ee ee 11 word processing fields ee ee 11 word processing tools ee alternate editot iiiee ete 15 ECONO od bent uk e Danes 14 Scteen CUNO io esser i e ets 12 SPINE SEES e ee o d 13 95
46. e a new option for your users which uses your templates to generate the report that you need Even if your IT department is pretty busy and most of them are this should be about a 15 minute job 54 March 213 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Creating custom reports is one of the ways you can help your team make the most of VISTA March 2013 55 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search Chapter 8 Search We have already learned how to sort entries and select a certain range within that sort There are situations however when sort and select isn t going to get you the information you need For example suppose we want to find out how many composers in our COMPOSER file have Johann or Johan as a first name We can t find this information by sorting the NAME field sorts alphabetically by last name We need to find a way to search within the NAME fields for the particular string we re after How Searching Works Now might be a good time to remind you that most packages have some kind of search option available to end users It s possible you can find the information you re looking for without having to query Fileman directly If you do need to ask Fileman you can use the Search File Entries option Search File Entries has three basic steps entering conditions combining conditions and formatting output We ll go over each of these in detail Invoking this option
47. e sorted them by birthdate so they were printed in birthdate order We didn t actually have to do that part we could have simply extracted composers born after 1900 without re ordering them by birthdate To do that we type an apostrophe before the field name like this 48 March 213 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Sort by NAME BIRTHDATE Enter Another handy qualifier lets you suppress the subheads when you don t print the sort field In our subhead example from Chapter 6 our subheads were reasonably helpful dividing composers into eras But what if we d tried to sort by birthdate without printing the BIRTHDATE field We d end up with something like this COMPOSER NOV 20 2012 08 39 PAGE 1 NAME BIRTHPLACE BIRTHDATE FEBRUARY 17 1653 CORELLI ARCANGELO FUSIGNANO BIRTHDATE MAY 2 1660 SCARLATTI ALESSANDRO PALERMO BIRTHDATE MARCH 4 1678 VIVALDI ANTONIO VENICE Yuck Those subheads aren t helpful at all Fortunately we can tell Fileman not to print them by putting an before our field name like this Sort by NAME BIRTHDATE Enter Now Fileman will not print subheads even if we don t choose BIRTHDATE as a print field These three examples are among the more popular sort qualifiers but they are not the only ones Appendix A gives you a complete list More Printing Options Just as there are special sort qualifier charac
48. e used to sort Thus if you specify SORT BY NAME L2 Only the first two letters of the name field will be used for sorting The order of Maris Roger and Mantle Mickey for example will be unpredictable in your output field Pa b Store sort range for display The P suffix saves the START WITH and GO TO sort range for one level of sort fields for later reference at a PRINT FIELD prompt You can substitute any string up to 60 characters in length for a and b in Pa b Whatever strings you use as a and b e g FROM and TO become subscripts of the PARAM array SORT BY NAME PFROM TO START WITH NAME FIRST C GO TO NAME LAST Dzzzzz Then at a PRINT FIELD prompt you can reference the saved values by using PARAM 2 string and PARAM b string Thus in this case THEN PRINT FIELD PARAM FROM THEN PRINT FIELD PARAM TO The sort from and sort to values of C and Dzzzzz in the report would then print in the appropriate location The typical reason 82 March 213 Sort Qualifier Reference Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual to save sort values and then retrieve them from the PARAM array in a print field is for custom report headers which are created as PRINT templates It is one method to print sort criteria in the report header If you need to sort on two or more fields you need to use a different stri
49. e want to stuff into the field Because we used two slashes Fileman will consider ROMANTIC to be the default for any record where ERA is blank Fileman would next show us the records we asked for and we would have the opportunity with each record to either accept the default or enter something else Setting a default before editing can save time But we would still have to go through each of the records we specified Let s consider a different scenario Earlier we hinted that Albuquerque is often misspelled Let s suppose that at our facility there were several patient records where the city was spelled Albaquerque We want to find those and stuff the correct spelling into each patient record Can we do that without having to manually go through each one 74 March 213 Chapter 10 Editing Records Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual We can Using LOOP we can specify the records we want to see And by using three slashes instead of two we can stuff the correct value into each record This is what that would look like Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Return Input to what file DEMO PATIENT Return Edit which field ALL CITY ALBUQUERQUE Return Then edit field Return Select DEMO PATIENT NAME LOOP Return Edit entries by NAME CITY Return Start with CITY FIRST ALBAQ Return Go to CITY LAST ALBAQZ Return As you can imagine the ability to stuff values into fields
50. ead start on all the packages you need to use for your job and any packages you may need to learn in the future Your User Interface In VISTA there are three native methods for displaying information and prompts to the user scrolling mode screen mode and list mode In addition development teams for some packages have added a Graphical User Interface GUI for a windows like look and feel In scrolling mode often called roll and scroll you will respond to one prompt at a time The prompts will be given to you in a pre determined order designed by the package s development team You can receive help at any prompt by typing one or two question marks In screen mode you will see an entire screen form which you can navigate through using command keys Typing one or two question marks will give you more information about how to navigate and use screen forms The third kind of display list mode is less common In list mode you see a list of your data and an action area in which you can type commands As March 2013 5 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 1 Interacting with Fileman with the other modes you can get help in list mode by typing one or two question marks GUIs are popular with users but it s important to remember that they are not part of Fileman They are written in other programming languages and added on Getting help in a GUI based application will depend on how the GUI has been set up The doc
51. ease to exist Wait that s wrong All that happens is that the computer alerts you and asks you to try again The world doesn t end and life goes on What constitutes an incorrect response That depends on the situation You may have typed in a word where Fileman was expecting a number You may have entered a social security number without dashes when Fileman was expecting dashes Fileman has some pretty clever ways of checking input to make sure it s the kind of input expected A big part of that checking has to do with field types which we discuss in the next chapter Skipping a Prompt If a prompt does not have a default answer you can skip it by pressing Return without entering any information This tells Fileman to leave that field blank and continue on to the next prompt Remember that if a prompt does have a default then pressing Return without entering information is how you accept the default Pressing Return in this case is not really skipping the prompt it s accepting the answer shown 8 March 213 Chapter 2 Field Types Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 2 Field Types When programmers set up a field in Fileman they designate it as one of nine field types These types are Computed MUMPS Date Free Text Numeric Pointer to a File Set of Codes Variable Pointer to Files Word Processing Of these types there are two where end users generally do not enter or edit information Computed fields
52. eld that cannot be left null for an entry Fileman s Screen oriented text editor It can be used to enter data into any word processing field using full screen editing A computer interface in which you see many lines of data at a time and in which you can move your cursor around the display screen using screen navigation commands Compare to Scrolling Mode The set of routines that supports Screen Mode The presentation of the interactive dialogue one line at a time often called roll and scroll Compare to Screen Mode The saved results of a search operation Usually the actual entries found are stored in addition to the criteria used to select those entries A field type where a short character string is defined to represent a longer value The stored record of sort specifications It contains sorting order as well as restrictions on the selection of entries Used to prepare entries for printing A record in a multiple A field in a multiple A file within a file having its own fields Sometimes called a multiple field or just a multiple An attribute of a field often an alternate name for the 93 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Glossary Truth Test Up arrow caret 94 field Although all fields can have titles not all of them do See Label An evaluation of an expression yielding a true or false result Used in the Search File Entries option The character caret used in Fileman for exiting a
53. ering select prompts and you normally won t be able to change the information Word processing fields are similar to free text fields in that they will accept just about any combination of letters numbers and symbols However word processing fields typically allow longer responses More importantly when you reach a word processing field Fileman launches one of VISTA s March 2013 11 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 2 Field Types native word processing tools so that you can compose your answer You can learn more about the word processing tools in the next section Using VISTA s Word Processing Tools VISTA has two native tools for answering a word processing field the screen editor and the line editor For users accustomed to commercial word processing software such as Microsoft Word these editors may come as something of a surprise There is no point and click no handy formatting buttons no pull down menus However both tools do a lot of the same things the commercial packages do it s simply a matter of learning how to make them do it Of the two tools the screen editor is probably the best option for users accustomed to modern word processors We recommend setting the screen editor as your preferred word processing tool To do this enter TBOX at any menu prompt This should take you into the User s Toolbox menu From there select Edit User Characteristics then go to the Preferred Editor field and make sure it is
54. fault answer also called a default is supplied by Fileman You can easily see that it is a default because it is followed by two slash marks Defaults work a little differently for different kinds of prompts sometimes you ll see the most common answer sometimes you ll see the most recent answer sometimes you ll see something else To accept the default press Return To enter a different answer just start typing Your answer will appear immediately after the slash marks like this COUNTY ALAMEDA SANTA CLARA When you press Return after typing your answer Fileman checks to make sure your answer fits the kind of answer expected If it does your answer is accepted Whether this also changes the default answer will depend on how the programmer set up this particular prompt Select Prompts When a prompt begins with the word Select Fileman is expecting you to choose an answer from an existing list Select prompts almost always have default answers Select STATE CALIFORNIA Because select prompts are expecting a very specific response it s not a bad idea to type a question mark so you can get a better idea of what Fileman is looking for Incorrect Responses If you respond to a prompt whether a basic prompt or a select prompt March 2013 7 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 1 Interacting with Fileman with an incorrect response the world will end and all life as we know it will c
55. field might have subfields for the opus name composition date and type of piece Searching on multiples is a special situation If one of the fields in your search conditions is a multiple Fileman prompts you for additional information like this A Search for COMPOSER field OPUS Enter A Search for COMPOSER OPUS sub field NAME Enter A Condition Enter Contains A Contains NAME SYMPHONY 9 Enter In this example we are searching for composers who have written a Ninth Symphony Once we complete our search conditions and combine them Fileman has some additional questions for us IF A Enter OR Enter Do you want this search specification to be considered true for condition A 1 When at least one of the OPUS multiples satisfies it 2 When all of the OPUS multiples satisfy it Choose 1 2 1 Our choices then are to choose composers who have at least one work called Symphony 9 or composers whose works are all called Symphony 9 For this example the choice is pretty obvious For some of the medical data you may end up searching for the choice may be less obvious Remember what we said earlier practice this stuff to get good at it 66 March 213 Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on the Browser Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on the Browser If your site is using Kernel if you are running VISTA you are using Kernel you may have the
56. hapter 6 Print or Display The Print File Entries option works a little differently When you choose the file Fileman assumes you want to print the whole thing You can choose not to of course but that is the starting assumption With that in mind let s look at printing our imaginary COMPOSER file Select OPTION PRINT FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter Sort by NAME Enter Start with NAME FIRST Enter First print field NAME Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE Enter Then print field BIRTHPLACE Enter Then print field Enter Heading S C COMPOSER LIST Enter DEVICE Enter Once we choose our file Fileman asks how we want it sorted We could sort by any field in the file but for now we re accepting the default and sorting by NAME Next Fileman asks us where we want to start We could use this prompt to select only a certain range of composers which we ll explore in greater detail a little later in the chapter For now we ll accept the default of FIRST meaning we want to start with the first composer on the list Fileman then asks us to specify one at a time which fields we would like to see on our printed report In our example we picked three but you could choose to show as many fields as you needed When we re done choosing fields we press the return key without entering any information Finally Fileman asks us about the heading that should
57. he file and records we wanted to see Select OPTION INQ Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter Select COMPOSER NAME MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS Another one HAYDN JOSEPH Another one BACH Enter 1 BACH CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL 2 BACH JOHANN CHRISTIAN 3 BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN Choose 1 3 3 BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN Another one Enter Standard Captioned Output Yes We took the default for that last question in Chapter 5 but what happens if we say NO Standard Captioned Output Yes No Enter First print field Hey look We know that prompt We can enter the name of a field to print and Fileman responds by asking us then print field just as it did in the Print File Entries option Or we can use a Print template it will work here just as it works in Print File Entries We can even use the CAPTIONED template Why would we use the CAPTIONED template instead of answering yes at the standard captioned output prompt Answering yes at the prompt means not only accepting the template but also accepting the default device your computer screen If you wanted to print out your 46 March 213 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual report on a printer you would need to say no at the prompt even if you wanted the standard captioning Computed Fields Once you have chosen your print fields whether in Inquire or Print you are asked a
58. hich do exist for our purposes Creating an Input template is very similar to what we ve seen already If you select at least five different fields to edit Fileman automatically prompts you for a template name You can also specify the creation of a template by answering the Edit which field prompt with a right bracket Once you have your template saved you can use it by entering its name enclosed in brackets at the Edit which field prompt As with other templates we ve seen so far Fileman asks if you would like to edit the template before you use it Editing an Input template is similar to editing a Sort or Print template Chapter 7 has specifics of how this process works If you edit your Input template you can insert a new field using the caret or up arrow character just as you can with a Print template In Chapter 7 we discussed how your IT department can use your Sort and Print templates to create new report options for your users Similarly your IT department can create new options based on your Input templates so that your users have new options for how they enter and edit records Edit Qualifiers In Chapter 7 we discussed sort and print qualifiers which you can use to refine and format your reports You can also use qualifiers when editing Most of these qualifiers are intended to be used in Input templates that you share with users they help define what your users see and how they enter information 76 Mar
59. ich often seems old fashioned but it occasionally shows up in terminology as well For example some VISTA documentation still refers to your computer as your terminal Print to screen is another piece of old computing terminology that may be unfamiliar On modern computers printing information and showing information on the computer screen are two completely different ideas In older systems though print to screen was a way of telling the system take this information arrange it as if you were going to print it and then show it to me on my computer Or rather on my terminal We mention this because in many VISTA applications including Fileman you often have to select a print option in order to display information on your screen the way you want to see it It s a little counter intuitive at first but keep in mind that VISTA can output information to any device Yes the device is usually a printer but it can treat your screen as a device as well Therefore in this manual and in many other VISTA manuals as well when we talk about options for printing information we are also talking about options for displaying the information on your screen even if we don t explicitly say so Printing a Default Report In the previous chapter we used the Inquire to File Entries option That option asked you for a file and then asked you to specify records from that file March 2013 31 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual C
60. ield You may have heard IT people or other super users refer to the 01 field What does that mean The 01 field is the single most important field in a file as identified by the developer who created the file For example the 01 field of our imaginary COMPOSER file is NAME The 01 field of a CLINIC file might be CLINIC ID NUMBER The 01 field plays a role in both adding and deleting records in a file If you attempt to add a new record without filling in the 01 field Fileman will not accept your record To delete an entry you can enter an at sign in the entry s 01 field Enter or Edit File Entries Option You can edit data in a file directly using the Enter or Edit File Entries option Keep in mind that you will only be allowed to edit a file if you have Write access to the file if you need to review the different levels of access and what they mean they are listed in Chapter 4 When you choose this option Fileman asks for the name of the file you want to edit Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Return Input to What File If you re not sure which files you re allowed to edit you can enter two question marks at this prompt to get a list March 2013 71 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records Let s assume we want to edit our trusty and imaginary COMPOSER file Fileman next asks us which field s we d like to edit Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Re
61. ing Started Manual Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options possible devices If you are not sure which one you are supposed to use contact your supervisor or IT department One device that may be available to you is the Browser The Browser is a different way of viewing the data on your screen which gives you more options and more flexibility than the simple print to screen we ve seen so far We discuss the Browser in greater detail in Chapter 9 More Sorting Options We ve learned the basics of sorting but Fileman has a lot more sorting tools at your disposal There are control characters you can enter at the sort by prompt to further refine your sort so that it comes out the way you want it A complete list of these sort qualifiers can be found in Appendix A For now here are a few of the most commonly used As we mentioned Fileman sorts in ascending order However you can specify a reverse sort that is sort in descending order Before you get too excited about this we should mention that it only works for numeric and date time fields To sort our COMPOSER file by birthdate in descending order we would enter Sort by NAME BIRTHDATE Enter The minus sign in front of the name of the field tells Fileman we want a reverse sort We can also select entries by criteria without sorting from them In one of our examples from Chapter 6 we selected composers born after 1900 In order to do this though w
62. ish to FILE this Assessment Y lt Enter gt Your Next Steps You now know just about everything end users need to know about Fileman As we ve said most of your interactions with Fileman will take place through one of the packages you use for your job A good next step March 2013 23 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 3 Getting Fancy would be to find the user manual or getting started manual for those packages and begin familiarizing yourself with how they work Of course if you re curious and want to learn more about Fileman you certainly can In that case a good next step would be to read the next part of this manual about how super users interact with Fileman 24 March 213 Part 2 Super Users Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Part 2 Super Users Chapter 4 Going Backstage As we said in Part 1 end users only interact with Fileman through the various packages that use Fileman s features The fields they respond to and the reports they can see are all created by package developers using Fileman s tools As a super user you can go backstage in Fileman to see how things work behind the scenes As is typical of backstage areas basic Fileman is pretty utilitarian The pretty backdrops are facing the audience back here there are unpainted two by fours and exposed nails and a few wires to trip over If you know what you re doing however Fileman can help you retrieve data in combinations not available
63. ith the system or that you accidentally gave Fileman a search that s really complex If it seems you ve been waiting too long for a reply you can type two up arrows and then press the Return key to tell Fileman to cancel the search 20 March 213 Chapter 3 Getting Fancy Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Required Fields Required Identifiers and Key Fields Some Fileman fields have been set up as required fields You will be able to tell when you reach one of these fields because you will be unable to skip it by pressing the Return key However you can jump out using an up arrow Some required fields are also required identifiers This means that if the field contains no information the record will not be saved For example if you are trying to create a new record that is a patient appointment the date field might be a required identifier If you left the date field blank Fileman would not save the appointment You would receive a warning before the appointment was discarded so you could correct the problem In a key field the information is not only required it must be unique For example each patient should have a unique Patient ID number if you try to enter two patients with the same Patient ID Fileman will alert you and will not accept the duplicate information More About Field Prompts Deleting a Field s Value We have already showed you how to accept a default response and how to enter a different re
64. le to leave these fields blank The specification looks like this Edit which field NAME REQ Enter 78 March 213 Chapter 10 Editing Records Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual The REO qualifier is a good one to use if a specific piece of information is badly needed in your department but perhaps not in the facility as a whole You can ensure that your users have to include it without interfering with the practices of other departments Duplicating Input Values Spacebar Recall Sometimes many entries will need the same data value input for a particular field If you follow a field label with DUP then your users can use spacebar recall to repeat their previous answer spacebar recall is described in Chapter 3 For example we could say Edit which field ERA DUP Enter The users would then be able to use spacebar recall to repeat their earlier response Since there are a limited number of answers to this field spacebar recall could save the users a bit of time By now we ve seen a few ways you can manage user input in your templates The following chart summarizes some things you might want to do for your users and what commands you would use to make it happen I want to Command Set up a default that users see when the Two slash stuff field is blank ERA ROMANTIC Allow spacebar recall Duplicate qualifier ERA DUP Place a value in the field
65. left margin If it is negative the field starts in that column as subtracted from the right margin If there is not enough room on a line for the field to display properly it is moved to the line below Adding C1 always starts a field s display at the beginning of a line field Dn Round decimal fractions Specify the number of decimal digits of accuracy with a number n If n 0 the number is rounded to a whole number The number n must be gt 0 or 0 field Ln Left justify and truncate To left justify within a field width of n characters follow the L with the number of column positions you want the field to occupy If necessary the data is truncated to fit into this length Since non numeric fields are left justified by default the only effect of L on those fields is truncation This qualifier does not affect DATE TIME valued fields field N Suppress consecutive duplicate values If you do not want the same value for a field printed on consecutive rows of a report add N to the field specification field Rn Right justify text To right justify within a field of n characters follow the R with that number Right justified data is not truncated if n is not large enough data spills into the next field s area causing confusing output NUMERIC DATA TYPE fields are right justified by default However computed March 2013 85 Fileman 22 2 Getting Sta
66. looks like this Select OPTION SEARCH FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter A Search for COMPOSER field Entering Conditions Once you have selected the search option and the file to be searched your next step is to enter one or more search conditions to test each entry These conditions are sometimes called truth tests which is a fancy computer language term for yes or no question 56 March 213 Chapter 8 Search Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Notice that our prompt starts with the letter A This is Fileman s way of helping us keep track of which search condition we re on Our first condition is A our second will be B and so on The question we want to ask Fileman is does the NAME field contain the string Johan The name Johann contains Johan so no matter how they spell it this query will find them We would enter that search condition like this A Search for COMPOSER field NAME Enter A Condition Enter Contains A Contains NAME JOHAN Enter When we enter the left bracket Fileman translates it to contains which is the search condition we want There are other symbols we can use for our search condition as described in the table below Condition Symbol For Field Types Null NULL All except word processing Contains Numeric free text word processing MUMPS set of codes and computed fields
67. lternate editor you can choose it for your preferred editor and use it all the time March 2013 15 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 3 Getting Fancy Chapter 3 Getting Fancy The first two chapters provide some basic information about how to use Fileman Now that you know the basics there are some nifty tricks you can use to save time when working in Fileman Partial Responses Raise your hand if you want to type ACETAMINOPHEN twenty times a day We didn t think so When choosing an answer from a select prompt you can just type the first few letters of your answer before pressing Return This is called a partial response If there is only one item on the list that matches your partial response Fileman automatically enters it as your answer If there is more than one possibility Fileman gives you a numbered list You can then select your answer using its number Keep in mind that a partial response only works if the answer is already in the database Fileman is smart but it doesn t read minds If your answer isn t in the database you ll need to add it by typing the entire thing If you find you need to add an answer and are not allowed to contact your supervisor or Application Coordinator Multi Part Responses Sometimes just typing the first part of the first word of the answer you want to select isn t going to do the trick With some select prompts you can use a multi part response which uses a comma to separa
68. ltiple line heading if you like and your own column headers and whatever else you want The downside is nothing is done automatically If you want column headers you need to include them in your print template If you want a line of dashes or equal signs or asterisks or anything else you ll need to specify it You can control how your heading looks through the use of print qualifiers which we will discuss in the next chapter Index Headings In a dictionary each page has a heading that includes the first and last word that can be found on the page These are called index headings and they are very useful when you re looking through a long list of data such as dictionary entries You can create index headings in Fileman which might come in handy if you have to print a long report that covers several pages To create an index heading create a Print template that includes the field you want to use for your index For example First print field Enter First print field Composer Enter Then print field NAME Enter Then print field Enter Heading S C COMPOSER LIST Enter Store print logic in template COMPOSER INDEX Enter Notice that NAME is not in quotation marks because we want Fileman to print the current value of the field at the top of the page When we use this 44 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Print template for a heading
69. m today Day is the default T 3W Three weeks from today T 1M One month ago T 2D The day before yesterday Some date fields are really date time fields they will accept a time as well as a date As with date only fields typing a question mark at the prompt will give you an idea of what formats you can use at a date time prompt Fileman is pretty clever about times too If you enter a time without specifying AM or PM Fileman interprets it to be during the day shift For example 10 15 would be interpreted as 10 15 AM but 3 30 would be interpreted as 3 30 PM As with dates Fileman has some tricks and shortcuts for entering times You can use MID for midnight and NOON for noon You can enter the word NOW or just the letter N and Fileman will enter the current time You can add or subtract hours or minutes to NOW as in these examples N 1H One hour from now N 30 Thirty minutes ago N 4H Four hours from now Free text fields as the name implies will accept just about any input They may have minimum or maximum lengths which you can determine by typing a question mark at the prompt 10 March 213 Chapter 2 Field Types Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual There are a few characters that free text fields will not accept Fileman usually won t accept the up arrow or caret because it is often used as part of VISTA commands And although Fileman will accept an as part of an answer in an email address for example it will
70. n option or canceling a response Also used in combination with a field name or prompt to jump to the specified field or prompt March 213 Index Index CANCE C ES 20 captioned outPU ese ee ee Re 29 46 computed fields RE RE eek 9 29 47 copy and paste from Browser 69 C stfri TOOUGTS oisi tu bts eU EE pd 45 custom Headings EE T Este n puRN 42 gatecbe Ideo usta use Aceh tigate renidet 9 default answer ccce 7 74 deletine ocior Re erm A Nt d 21 edit rete sc oce oi eei Re 76 file dee dece DE ute iu ES E UE 26 free text fields anaia 10 35 graphical user interface GUI 5p Ideni Pe Er es DER tae EM T 21 index NACH OG e scare ue ahh Rs 44 JUMPING uo so cade ena AS a eadein 19 jumping OUE iscritte rei ai 20 key fields ac eod ote ger cM e REN ee 21 ISRO RS RE ee r 5 multi part response see ee Re ee 16 ATU OES cs as se EE ER GE es GE is pts 65 motietie Teldsiaus oie e ret Ee 11 partial response dee tetro rep ss 16 38 porter Helde co oo esee rane tob Ead Oe De 11 print qualifiers 5 eee ters 44 49 84 print to SCRE BIN ous oce se Ye hes 31 replace c WIGDLL s ER Ee uro suiit 17 19 using ellipses a ced Ge ek 18 required fields auus e tremo iaa 21 tegaed AdentrHers sot eie octo emos 2 search condition ssceeeee 57 59 March 2013 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Combining eic pte rH ore 58 61 Sere Ml ae ae at dee U
71. nditions there are a few symbols you can use to tell Fileman what you want to see Condition Symbol Description Example AND amp The conditions on both sides of A amp B the AND operator must be true The amp symbol can be omitted i e AB is the same as A amp B NOT or The condition following NOT A must be false If A is false A evaluates as true OR Enter on Only one of the conditions IF A lt Enter gt new line combined with OR needs to be OR B Enter true If A is true and B is false A OR B evaluates as true The difficult thing about creating and combining search conditions is not using the correct symbols The difficult thing is training yourself to think with the formal logic of a computer We wish we could help with that but experience is really the only way to learn how to do this If you want to be a whiz at finding the data you need practice doing searches March 2013 61 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search Search Templates Just as you were able to save sort templates and print templates you can also save your search specifications in a Search template Fileman prompts you for the name of a template after you finish combining your search conditions Store results of search in template If you do not want to save your search you can just press Return to continue to the next step Otherwise you can save your search by giving your tem
72. ng for a and b at each level or else the values will overwrite each other No value is saved in the PARAM array if the user accepts FIRST or LAST as the START WITH or GO TO sort values the PARAM array will be null field Sn Skip lines when sort value changes The S suffix skips one line between sort field sort value values if no number is added If you specify changes a number n n lines are skipped For example here we sort by patients but we ask that each time the patient value changes we add 3 lines Output from what File VISIT Sort by VISIT ADMIT DATE amp TIME PATIENT NAME S3 Start with PATIENT NAME FIRST Within PATIENT NAME Sort by field TXT Sort numbers as text The TXT sort qualifier forces digits to be sorted as alphanumeric strings not as numbers 22 sorts before 3 Use this to correctly sort mixed canonic and non canonic numbers field xxx Replace caption in subheader and sort The default subheader is the field label or expression entered at the SORT BY prompt The same string is used within the March 2013 83 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Sort Qualifier Reference dialogue sort dialogue You can substitute a string of your choosing by adding a semicolon and text enclosed in quotation marks For example SORT BY DATE OF BIRTH Birthdate To suppress the caption in the subheader enter two d
73. ntend to combine them This is why it s a good idea to work these things out ahead of time Now that we re pretty sure we know what we re asking let s define our conditions A Search for COMPOSER field NAME Enter A Condition Enter Contains A Contains NAME JOHAN Enter B Search for COMPOSER field BIRTHPLACE Enter B Condition Enter Equals B Equals BIRTHPLACE LONDON lt Enter gt C Search for COMPOSER field ERA lt Enter gt C Condition lt Enter gt Equals March 2013 59 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 8 Search C Equals ERA ROMANTIC Enter D Search for COMPOSER field BIRTHDATE Enter D Condition Enter Greater than D Greater than BIRTHDATE 12 31 1850 E Search for COMPOSER field Enter IF That was a lot of information so let s highlight a few things First we chose the equals condition for the birthplace This means that Fileman will only show us records where the birthplace matches London exactly If somebody made an entry and misspelled London that record will not be selected If it was really important to get every record we could have used the contains condition instead and ask Fileman for records that contain the string Lond for example That might get some misspellings that the equals condition missed However it might also give us other cities with similar names such as Ne
74. option of sending your reports from the Inquire Print or Search options to a device called the Browser The Browser is an alternate method for viewing reports on your screen it has more viewing options available than the basic print to screen You can find out whether the Browser is available to you by typing two question marks at the device prompt to get a list of available devices If you do not have the Browser available and would like to try it ask your IT department about getting it enabled The Browser Screen Let s begin by taking a quick look at the Browser screen As you can see it has a lot in common with the word processing Screen Editor COMPOSER NOV 15 2012 09 36 BIRTHDATE ERA BAROQUE BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN MARCH 31 1685 CORELLI ARCANGELO FEBRUARY 17 1653 HANDEL GEORGE FRIDERIC FEBRUARY 23 1685 PACHELBEL JOHANN PURCELL HENRY SCARLATTI ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI DOMENICO TELEMANN GEORG PHILIPP VIVALDI ANTONIO ERA CLASSICAL BACH CARL PHILIPP EMANUAL BACH JOHANN CHRISTIAN BOCCHERINI LUIGI GLUCK CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD HAYDN JOSEPH MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS Col 1 lt PF1 gt H help lt PF1 gt E exit Line March 2013 AUGUST 1653 SEPTEMBER 1659 MAY 2 1660 OCTOBER 26 1685 MARCH 14 1681 MARCH 4 1678 MARCH 8 1714 SEPTEMBER 5 1735 FEBRUARY 19 1743 JULY 2 1714 MARCH 31 1732 JANUARY 27 1756 22 of 300 67 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 9 Viewing Reports on
75. ossary Non null Null Option Pointer to a File Pop up Page Preferred Editor Print Template Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi Programming System MUMPS is sometimes shortened to M A value other than null A space and zero are non null values Empty A field or variable that has no value associated with it is null A computing activity that you can select usually a choice from a menu A field data type that points to information that resides in another file In Screenman a page that overlays the regular Screenman screen in order to present the contents of a selected multiple The editor always entered when you access a word processing field your default editor Kernel must be present to establish a Preferred Editor The stored specifications of a printed report including fields to be printed and formatting instructions Programmer Access The ability to use Fileman features that are reserved Record Record Number 92 for application developers You do not need programmer access to use any of the features described in this manual A set of data pertaining to a single entity in a file an entry in a file See Internal Entry Number March 213 Glossary Required Field Screen Editor Screen Mode Screenman Scrolling Mode Search Template Set of Codes Sort Template Subentry Subfield Subfile Title March 2013 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual A fi
76. ou answer yes Fileman first asks about the name of the template Sort by NAME PRACTICE SORT Enter Nov 26 2012 13 43 User XX File YYY Want to edit PRACTICE SORT template YES Enter Name PRACTICE SORT If you press Return here you accept the default and keep the template name the way it is You can also enter an at this prompt to delete your template altogether If you type in a different name you will be changing the name of your template the old name will no longer be used For example you could enter Want to edit PRACTICE SORT template YES Enter Name PRACTICE SORT DEMO SORT Enter If you did this then when you were finished editing you would have a sort template named DEMO SORT but you would no longer have one named PRACTICE SORT If you asked Fileman to use your PRACTICE March 2013 51 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options SORT template you would get an error because it would no longer exist under that name For this example let s keep our template name the way it is Sort by NAME PRACTICE SORT Enter Nov 26 2012 13 43 User XX File YYY Want to edit PRACTICE SORT template YES Enter Name PRACTICE SORT Enter Read access Enter Write access Enter What s that about Read access Write access You can use these prompts to allow some of your co workers to access
77. ouble quotes after the semicolon SORT BY DATE OF BIRTH The specified caption is also used in the subsequent sort dialogue This is useful in simplifying the sort dialogue when a field label is confusing is concatenated or is an extended pointer For example SORT BY STORE REGION Location START WITH Location FIRST Enter WITHIN Location SORT BY Enter PRINT FIELD STORE THEN PRINT FIELD Location is substituted for STORE REGION Print Qualifier Reference The following table illustrates the print qualifiers you can use at the PRINT FIELD prompts Qualifier Action Discussion field Count The number of entries with non null values in this field are counted field All statistics Use with NUMERIC fields only Six lines of statistical output are generated for the selected field Total count mean maximum minimum and standard deviation amp field Total Use for NUMERIC fields only The values of all occurrences of this field are summed field Total count and Use for NUMERIC fields only The sum mean count of non null values and the arithmetic 84 March 213 Print Qualifier Reference Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual mean of the non null values are printed field Cn Set start column position You can specify the starting column of a field s display If the number n is a positive number the field prints in that column counting from the
78. plate a name Fileman asks if you want to save your new template then prompts you for a description in the same way we ve seen with other kinds of templates Store results of search in template PRACTICE SEARCH Enter Are you adding PRACTICE SEARCH as a new SORT TEMPLATE No X Enter Description From here you can enter a description and save your Sort template Whoa Wait hang on here Sort template We wanted to store a Search template Yes we have uncovered a secret To Fileman a Search template is merely a specialized kind of Sort template Every now and again a VISTA expert will loftily inform you that there s no such thing as a Search template Technically they re correct However you probably want your Search templates to do different kinds of things from your Sort templates so it s perfectly okay to think of them as different kinds of templates Even if not everybody agrees with you 62 March 213 Chapter 8 Search Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Formatting Output We ve specified our search conditions and told Fileman how to combine them and saved or not saved our search What comes next IF A Enter OR B Enter OR C amp D Enter OR Enter Store results of search in template Enter Sort by NAME Well this is a familiar sight Once you ve finished combining your search conditions the rest of it is the same sort and print prompts we ve been
79. press instead What has it been mapped to We don t know there are several options and it would have been done locally there at your facility If your keyboard has an lt F1 gt key you can try that and see what happens but you will probably March 2013 13 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 2 Field Types need to ask your supervisor or Application Coordinator what the proper sequence is If you press lt PF1 gt and then H for Help you will see a list of the most commonly used commands in the screen editor The main thing to remember in the screen editor is that it isn t a windows type application You will not be able to use your mouse You can navigate using your arrow keys your tab key and special commands such as lt PF1 gt T for top and lt PF1 gt B for bottom Notes on the Line Editor The line editor is older than the screen editor and more challenging for modern users We recommend using the screen editor instead and if you have set your User Characteristics to use the screen editor you should never encounter the line editor If you do encounter the line editor you will see the name of the field you are working in followed by a numbered line like this Description 1 If you re feeling brave or if your reply is short you can just start typing However we recommend switching to the screen editor To do this press the Return key without entering any text That should give you a prom
80. pt that looks like this EDIT Option At this prompt type a U to reach the Utility submenu The first option on this submenu allows you to exit the line editor and continue the task in the screen editor After completing your task we recommend returning to your User s Toolbox and the Edit User Characteristics option and making sure your 14 March 213 Chapter 2 Field Types Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual preference is set to use the screen editor The line editor is interesting and you are welcome to learn to use it if you want to but you should be able to complete all your word processing tasks with the screen editor Your Alternate Editor As we mentioned earlier the screen editor and the line editor are the word processing tools native to VISTA However your IT department may have provided you with an alternate editor for word processing How can you tell if you have an alternate editor If you type TBOX at any prompt then select Edit User Characteristics and look at the Preferred Editor field you should see your alternate editor if you have one Everyone should have the line editor and the screen editor if you have a third one listed that is your alternate editor If you do have an alternate editor we can t tell you what it s called or what it does because alternate editors vary from site to site Contact your supervisor or IT department for information about your alternate editor If you like your a
81. r users or some of your users will be editing on a small and or crowded screen and you want to minimize the amount of space your prompt uses In addition to the label fields can have titles Often the title is another name for the same information You can choose to show the user the field s title instead of its label by using T after the field like this Edit which field BIRTHDATE T Enter If you used that command for a template the user would see the title of the field instead of the label when they were editing or entering records How do you know what a field s title is There s a way you can view this and other attributes belonging to a field but it s a little more advanced and often requires a higher level of file permission File attributes are covered in more detail in the Fileman 22 2 Advanced User Manual For now you can see a field s title by calling up the Enter or Edit File Entries option and using the T qualifier when editing the field You may just see the label which means that this particular field does not have a title Hequiring Input As we discussed in Chapter 3 some fields are required by Fileman This kind of requirement is set by programmers However you as a super user can make certain fields required within your template This does not change their status in Fileman Fileman will still regard them as non required fields You can however ensure that your users won t be ab
82. rt Qualifier Reference The following table illustrates the sort qualifiers you can use at the SORT BY prompts Qualifier Action Discussion Ifield Number entries Entries having the same value for the SORT by sort value BY field are numbered sequentially starting at one field Page break Starts a new page every time the value of the when sort value sorted field changes changes field Specify a range Lets you select entries based on this field in for output the START WITH GO TO dialogue without sorting but not sort based on the field field Subtotal within You can sub subtotal by adding a prefix of a SORT BY field to two fields in the SORT BY dialogue For example SORT BY REGION WITHIN REGION SORT BY STORE This produces subtotals for each STORE within the subtotals for each REGION field Reverse sort Only effective for NUMERIC and order DATE TIME valued fields field Suppress the Normally a subheader with the value of the printing of SORT BY field name is printed if the field is subheader not also specified as a print field field Cn X Set column of The number n indicates the column to March 2013 81 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Sort Qualifier Reference subheader begin the subheader field Ln Use less than the entire sort field for sorting The L suffix lets you specify that only the first n characters of the field b
83. rted Manual Chapter 5 Inquire options here which we will discuss later but for now we ll just accept the default answer of No Depending on the security settings of the file Fileman may ask you if you want to display an audit trail This feature is useful for security and patient privacy officers in your facility but it s not all that useful for a standard super user If you see this prompt and you probably won t you can accept the default answer of No Fileman then displays the results of our inquiry which look like this NAME BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN BIRTHDATE MARCH 31 1685 BIRTHPLACE EISENACH ERA BAROQUE DIED JULY 28 1750 NAME HAYDN JOSEPH BIRTHDATE MARCH 31 1732 BIRTHPLACE ROHRAU DIED MAY 31 1809 NAME MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS BIRTHDATE JANUARY 27 1756 BIRTHPLACE SALZBURG ERA CLASSICAL DIED DECEMBER 5 1791 Notice that in the record for Joseph Haydn there is no entry for the ERA field Fileman simply skips this field and moves on to the next In Chapter 7 we ll learn more about Inquire to File Entries and how we can customize the output For now though let s leave inquiry for the time being and move on to printing and displaying reports 30 March 213 Chapter 6 Print or Display Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display A Word About Printing As you have probably noticed VISTA and Fileman are rather old This is most obvious in the user interface wh
84. rted Manual Print Qualifier Reference expressions with numeric results are not right justified automatically field Sn Skip lines between fields You can indicate a number of lines to skip before printing a field by using Sn Without a number S skips a single line If your field has a null value n lines are skipped anyway You cannot use S with a WORD PROCESSING type field To skip one line before a WORD PROCESSING field precede the field with an additional print specification like this THEN PRINT FIELD S field T Use field TITLE as header If you want to use the field s TITLE as defined in the data dictionary instead of its LABEL in the header add T field Wn Wrap text The W suffix splits a field that is too long for its field column width at word boundaries spaces and prints it out fully on two or more rows You can optionally follow the W with the number of column positions to be occupied by each line of output If the field s data dictionary definition says to always print in word wrap mode WORD PROCESSING DATA TYPEs are automatically wrapped The W suffix overrides the R or L suffixes do not use them together field X Suppress header and inter column spaces Follow the field specification with X to suppress the two spaces normally inserted before a field and the column header for the field The result is concatenation of the field with the
85. sponse But if a field has a default how do you tell Fileman to leave it blank You can do this by typing an at the prompt as in the example below DATE OF BIRTH May 21 1946 Q Enter SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE In this example the date on file would be erased there is no answer to the DATE OF BIRTH question its value is now null You re asked to confirm the deletion this gives you a chance to change your mind before deleting the field March 2013 21 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 3 Getting Fancy In chapter 2 we mentioned that a free text field will not accept an by itself This is one of the reasons an by itself means delete the information in this field and leave it blank Spacebar Recall This is a neat trick you can do with all select prompts If you want the same answer you picked the last time you saw this select prompt press the spacebar and then the Return key Your previous answer will be selected For example if you are editing a particular patient in a Nursing application and then switch to the Order Entry application to work with the same patient you can use the spacebar to select the same patient at the Order Entry Select PATIENT NAME prompt Select PATIENT NAME lt Space gt lt Enter gt FMPATIENT TWENTY FOUR NAME FMPATIENT TWENTY FOUR Spacebar recall should work at any select prompt It may also work at other prompts you can try it and see
86. t with ERA FIRST Enter Go to ERA LAST Enter Within ERA sort by NAME Enter Start with NAME FIRST Enter Store in SORT Template ERA SORT Enter Are you adding ERA SORT as a new sort template Y Enter DESCRIPTION No existing text Edit NO Enter Should template user be asked FROM TO range for ERA NO Fileman gives us the option of saving the non default from to range we used Or we could choose to let the user specify each time You might choose to save Sort templates in this way if you need to produce reports that are similar but that cover different entries in the file Reusing Sorts Now that we ve saved a sort how do we use it We call up our COMPOSER file again and at the sort by prompt we enter a left square bracket plus the template name OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER lt Enter gt Sort by NAME PRACTICE SORT lt Enter gt Nov 16 2012 09 17 User XX File YYY Want to edit PRACTICE SORT template NO lt Enter gt First print field From there we can designate the print fields and see our report Notice that when we responded to the sort by prompt we entered the left square bracket before the template name but not a right square bracket after it Technically there should be a right square bracket after the name of the template Remember however that Fileman will accept a partial response so we probably don t have to type th
87. te words or parts of words that you are looking for For example you might be trying to look up a doctor You remember that his first name is Tim or Tom and his last name is Brad something Bradford Bradshaw Bradley Something like that You can use a multi part response to find the doctor based on this partial information 16 March 213 Chapter 3 Getting Fancy Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Select DOCTOR T BRAD Return 1 T Bradford Griffin 2 Tamara Bradlee 3 Thomas Bradwell Choose 1 3 Fileman responds with a list of entries that match your multi part response Note that multi part responses are not as flexible as say Google searches Each part of your multi part response has to be the beginning of the word you cannot search for strings found within the word In addition the parts have to be in the order you typed them Our T BRAD search for example would not find a doctor named Bradley Thompson because the words are in a different order Longer Default Responses When a default is 20 or more characters in length it won t be followed by double slashes Instead it is presented with a Replace prompt ADDRESS 1 301 Bayshore Boulevard Replace Accepting this kind of default is exactly the same as accepting shorter default answers you simply press the Return key If the answer you want is kind of similar to the default but something needs to be changed you can tell Fileman
88. ters there are similar print qualifiers A complete list of print qualifiers can be found in Appendix A For now here are some of the most commonly used To format your report you can specify where you would like a particular field to begin For example you could enter March 2013 49 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options First print field NAME lt Enter gt Then print field ERA C20 Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE C 15 lt Enter gt Then print field Enter These commands are asking Fileman to print the ERA field starting 20 columns from the left margin and to print the BIRTHDATE field 15 columns from the right margin The C after the field name tells Fileman we want to designate a column We follow that with a positive integer to count from the left or a negative integer to count from the right In this example what would Fileman do if the NAME field for a particular record was more than 20 characters long It would print out the entire NAME then print the ERA and BIRTHDATE for that composer on the next line down That s probably not what we want You can specify that Fileman should cut off or truncate a field value at a specific length That would look like this First print field NAME L18 lt Enter gt Then print field ERA C20 Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE C 15 lt Enter gt Then print field Enter The L after NAME specifies that
89. that you can also use your Search template in the Print File Entries option like this Select OPTION PRINT FILE ENTRIES Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter Sort by NAME PRACTICE SEARCH lt Enter gt The important thing to keep in mind with search templates is that you may see different results with the different options When you use a Search template in the Search File Entries option you are instructing Fileman to run your search query again If the file has been updated since the last time you used the search and some of the new records meet your search criteria you will see these new records in the results When you use a Search template in the Print File Entries option you are instructing Fileman to use the results obtained the last time the search was saved If the file has been updated since the last time you saved the search you will not see any of the new records even if they meet the search criteria A Search template can therefore be used to create and save a snapshot of data which will remain the same no matter how many new records get added to a file 64 March 213 Chapter 8 Search Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Updating a Snapshot There are times when creating a snapshot of key data is pretty darned handy But what if we wanted to update our snapshot to include new data We can do this using the Search File Entries option We call up the option and use our PRAC
90. the NAME field should be left justified Of course NAME is a free text field which is going to be left justified by default However we can also enter the maximum number of characters we want to see In this case we re asking Fileman to cut off the name after the first 18 characters which should give us a nice two column cushion before the ERA field begins You can also use this command to left justify fields that are normally aligned differently such as numeric fields You must always enter a number after the L to tell Fileman the size of the field you want to see If one of the fields you want has kind of an awkward name you can specify a different field label on the printout Here is how you would do that 50 March 213 Chapter 7 More Inquire and Print Options Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual First print field NAME lt Enter gt Then print field BIRTHDATE Date of Birth Enter Then print field BIRTHPLACE Place of Birth lt Enter gt Then print field Enter The specified label enclosed in quotation marks is what Fileman will put in the header instead of the field name Notice how we used underscores in Date of Birth this ensures that the label will be printed on one line and will not wrap Please see Appendix A for a complete list of print qualifiers Editing Templates Each time you retrieve a template whether for printing or sorting Fileman asks if you want to edit the template If y
91. the copied text to appear and press lt PF1 gt V Search While in the Browser you can search for a specific string To use this feature press lt PF1 gt F for Find At the prompt enter the string you would like to search for You can specify the direction of the search by ending your string with lt ArrowUp gt or ArrowDown If you just press the Return key after the string the default search direction is down To find the same string again you can press lt PF1 gt N for the Next occurrence of the string Online Help As with most screen based VISTA applications the Browser includes online help To access a Help summary press lt PF1 gt H For more detailed help press lt PF1 gt lt PF1 gt H The Browser as an Option If you like the Browser you can also use it to view the contents of any word processing field that you have access to You can call up the Browser by choosing Other from Fileman s main menu then selecting Browser from the Other submenu Fileman then prompts you for the file field and entry to view 70 March 213 Chapter 10 Editing Records Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records Records can be edited by ordinary users using the options available to them in VISTA s packages For most of the editing that you will need to do these editing options should work just fine However you may need to use Fileman s more sophisticated editing tools to do database cleanup The 01 F
92. turn Input to what file COMPOSER Return Edit which field ALL How you answer this prompt depends on what kind of database cleanup you re trying to do If for example you re dealing with a problem where specific records are more or less completely screwed up you would want to edit ALL fields for these records On the other hand you may have a problem where one field consistently has wrong or incomplete information In that situation you would probably want to limit your editing to that one field For this first example let s assume we want to edit all fields Select OPTION Enter or Edit File Entries Return Input to what file COMPOSER Return Edit which field ALL Return Select COMPOSER NAME RACHMANINOFF SERGEI Return Once the composer is selected Fileman walks through all the fields giving you the opportunity to edit them Wait that s it You can select a record by its 01 field and then edit it Can t you just do that as a regular user in VISTA Yes at its most basic level Enter or Edit File Entries is a little underwhelming So let s not spend any more time at the basic level let s learn about some of the options that make this a powerful tool Using LOOP As long as you have to specify one at a time which records you want to edit the Enter or Edit File Entries option isn t appreciably better than the 72 March 213 Chapter 10 Editing Records Fileman
93. u finish with the fields you will see the store in SORT template prompt Press Return here without entering any information This is how you tell Fileman actually don t save my changes just use them this one time but keep my template the way it was This feature is why there is no default at the store in prompt If there were a default you wouldn t have the option of pressing Return to not save your changes Return would instead accept the default answer Sharing Templates Let s suppose your department needed to produce a weekly report Let s also suppose that the VISTA packages your department is using don t allow your users to generate that report So you go backstage in Fileman using your super user access and you create Sort and Print templates that will pull the information you need format it the way you want and print it out with custom headings and footers Your report is a thing of beauty Of course you re the only one who can use the darned thing What you want now is to make your templates available to other users And not just super users you want the regular users in your department to be able to generate this report whenever they need to using your templates Is there a way for you to do this Not exactly There isn t a way you can do this however somebody with programmer access can do it pretty easily Once you have your templates the way you want them you can ask someone from your IT department to creat
94. umentation for the specific package should include information on how to get help The environment used by a specific package scrolling mode screen mode list mode or GUI is determined by the package s development team You as the user cannot switch to a different mode You should therefore become familiar with scrolling mode and screen mode and list mode if applicable so that you can use all the applications your job requires Responding to Prompts As a user your interactions with Fileman will consist mainly of responding to prompts The prompts will ask you to enter information or choose information from a list When you respond to a prompt pressing the Enter or Return key on your keyboard is how you tell Fileman that your answer is complete If you type an answer or choose an item and do not press Return Fileman will think you re still working on it and will continue waiting patiently for you Basic Prompts A basic Fileman prompt looks like this COUNTY With a prompt like this Fileman is asking for information Usually when Fileman is expecting information there will be a colon at the end of the text the colon is your clue that you need to enter something In this case Fileman is looking for the name of a county 6 March 213 Chapter 1 Interacting with Fileman Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Many Fileman prompts look more like this COUNTY ALAMEDA With this prompt a de
95. usually not accept an by itself It s also a bit of a challenge to enter a question mark by itself Fileman will think you re asking for help Numeric fields accept only numbers If you try to type in a word your answer will be rejected Numeric fields are often set up to accept only numbers within a certain range You can type a single question mark at the prompt to find out what kind of number Fileman is expecting Pointer fields point to data that resides in another file For example when you are asked to enter an address the field for state is probably a pointer to the STATE file Information about states lives in the STATE file but you can use it for the address you re entering Responding to a pointer prompt is a lot like responding to a select prompt except you won t see the word select Also you normally won t be able to change the data in a pointer field since the actual data resides someplace else Some fields are expecting an entry from a specific set of codes Examples include M or F for gender or Y or N for yes or no In this kind of field Fileman will accept only one of the codes specified no other entry will be accepted Typing a single question mark at a set of codes prompt will give you information about how to answer Variable pointers work exactly like pointer fields except they can point to several different files to access their information As with pointer fields answering these fields is a lot like answ
96. w London and Londonderry Which condition you choose for your search depends on many factors How important is it that you get every single record that might fit the criteria How many extra records will you get with a looser condition How likely is it that you will miss records with the stricter condition These questions are related to a broader issue which is database integrity If you re having to go through a lot of extra steps to catch all the records you want because information is misspelled it may be time for a database cleanup Some options for this are discussed in Chapter 10 In this case we decided that London is less likely to be misspelled than say Albuquerque so we re taking a chance with the equals condition In our imaginary COMPOSER file we re imagining that ERA is a set of codes field rather than a free text field When searching a set of codes field you must search on the actual value not the code that represents it In 60 March 213 Chapter 8 Search Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual our search therefore we used the whole word ROMANTIC rather than its code R Now that we ve established our conditions let s tell Fileman how to combine them IF A Enter OR B Enter OR C amp D Enter OR Enter What we re saying here is that we d like to see the records where condition A is true or condition B is true or conditions C and D are both true When combining co
97. which files you need access to it is important to tell them what kind of access you want Typically a super user will have Read access to several files and Write access to only a few files They may not have any LAYGO or Delete access at all if they do it s typically only one or two files Before you start composing a list of files you need access to you should know that programmers can copy another user s access profile and apply it to you If for example you are replacing someone else as a super user you can just ask your IT department to give you the same access to the same files that the other person had That can save time both for you and for the programmers If you are not yet officially a super user you may still be able to get super user access and access to a demo file so you can practice without actually affecting your facility s real database It might not be allowed but it won t hurt to ask your IT department about it March 2013 27 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 5 Inquire Chapter 5 Inquire End users can look at Fileman data by using the various reports supplied by the package developers for the particular package that they are using As a super user you have other ways of retrieving and reviewing Fileman data Inquire to File Entries Option The most basic of these options is called Inquire to File Entries You can use this option when you know the name of the file you want to look at and
98. without user Three slash stuff action DEPARTMENT BILLING March 2013 79 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 10 Editing Records I want to Command Require that a value be entered Required qualifier ERA REQ Delete all values from the field without Three slash stuff of user action ERA Require that a value be entered and Edit qualifiers can be combined allow spacebar recall ERA REQ DUP Your Next Steps As its title suggests this manual is meant to get you started with the kinds of Fileman tasks you are most likely to perform as a super user Once you have finished with this manual you have a few different options of where to go next If you are interested in more information about the packages your department users those packages should have their own documentation including information for super users If you are interested in learning more about what super users can do in Fileman you will find it in the Fileman Advanced Users Manual If the kinds of things you want to do seem to involve programming you could investigate the Fileman Programmers Getting Started Manual You will probably need additional permissions if you are going to take on programming tasks 80 March 213 Appendix A Sort and Print Qualifiers Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Appendix A Sort and Print Qualifiers So
99. y BIRTHPLACE we would only see composers whose birthplace had some value filled in If you would like to include records with null values on your list you can do that At the start with prompt enter an rather than FIRST Records with null values in the sort field will appear at the top of the list Sorting with Subheads Let s suppose we wanted to sort our list of composers by their era There are only a few classical music eras and it s of limited use to see a column that says for example BAROQUE thirty times in a row What we d like is to sort the composers by era but have them appear under era subheads rather than devote an entire column to them Can we do this in Fileman We can We can specify to sort by ERA but then rot choose ERA as one of the print fields like this Sort by NAME ERA Enter Start with ERA FIRST Enter Within ERA Sort by NAME Enter First print field NAME Enter Then print field BIRTHDATE Enter Then print field Enter March 2013 35 Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Chapter 6 Print or Display Because ERA isn t one of our print fields Fileman divides the resulting printout into sections each with a subhead COMPOSER NOV 15 2012 09 36 PAGE 1 NAME BIRTHDATE ERA BAROQUE BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN MARCH 31 1685 CORELLI ARCANGELO FEBRUARY 17 1653 HANDEL GEORGE FRIDERIC FEBRUARY 23 1685 PACHELBEL JOHANN AUGUST 1653 and so on
100. you know specifically which records you want to see To use this option type INQUIRE TO FILE ENTRIES or just INQ at your menu prompt Fileman responds by asking you what file For our examples we ll use an imaginary file called COMPOSER Select OPTION INQ Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter Select COMPOSER NAME Now that you have the file Fileman asks which specific records you want to look at We need to respond with in this case the specific names of the composers we want to see This is Fileman s simplest type of database query because it only shows you what you specifically ask for Using this option we could not for example ask Fileman to display all composers born before 1800 That s a more advanced type of query we ll learn about in the next chapter For now we can just request and see specific records in this file So let s start requesting Select OPTION INQ Enter OUTPUT FROM WHAT FILE COMPOSER Enter 28 March 213 Chapter 5 Inquire Fileman 22 2 Getting Started Manual Select COMPOSER NAME MOZART Enter When we type the name of our first composer Fileman finds the record and echoes back the full name plus any additional identifiers the record may have Select COMPOSER NAME MOZART WOLFGANG AMADEUS Another one HAYDN JOSEPH Another one BACH lt Enter gt 1 BACH CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL 2 BACH JOHANN CHRISTIAN 3 BACH JOHANN SEB

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