Create an application

Starting situation

In your company, computer hardware is (still) being managed with Excel.

You have been given the task of carrying out an inventory. The aim is to determine whether employees have a PC, a laptop or a tablet.

Goal

You no longer want to use Excel. And you don't want to ask employees what device they have. Instead, employees should record which device they have themselves.

Your application could look something like this:

 

Page 1 - "Manage hardware"

Elements of page 1 - "Manage hardware"

 

 

Page 2 - "Overview"

Elements of page 2 - "Overview"

We want your application to be integrated into the enterprise portal. It should be accessible via the "SELFSERVICE" menu.

Solution

Create an application with Intrexx. All the necessary components are available to you "out-of-the-box".

The following is a ten-step guide that will walk you through the application creation process.

You create an application "from scratch", i.e. all components of the application are inserted on blank pages.

If you do not want to start from scratch when creating an application, you can use the application templates provided by (Undefined variable: General.CompanyName-without-GMBH).

Application templates Intrexx has a range of application templates. They already come with a wide range of functionalities. Have a look through our templates. You may find that they already meet your requirements. Or extend the templates to make your vision a reality. The steps described in this tutorial will be of great help to you when extending the templates.

 

In the first step, create an "Empty application" in Intrexx. The "Empty application" is part of the application templates that Intrexx provides.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Start the "Applications" module.

  2. Select "File > Application new..." (Ctrl+N).

    The "Applications" dialog ("Application manager") is displayed.

  3. Click on Create next to "Empty application".

    The so-called Application Designer will open. This is the graphical interface that you use to create the web application.

    You have now already created the technical basis for the new application.

    When creating the application, Intrexx has already created a (web)page with the name "Overview". This will be used later for displaying the data.

  4. Give the application a suitable name: "Manage hardware"

  5. Highlight the name of the application and press F2.

    The name can now be edited.

  6. Change the name to "Manage hardware".

In the second step, add a data group to the application.

Data groups are used to store data. They correspond to a table in a database or - if you like - a data sheet in an Excel spreadsheet.

The data group itself will not be displayed in the application. Later - in Step 9 - Add a view table - you will create a view table. Its job is to display the date.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select "Manage hardware" and right-click.

  2. Select "New > Data group".

    The "Properties - Data group" dialog box is displayed.

  3. Enter "Hardware" in the title. (You can also use any other title for the data group).

  4. Click on "OK".

    The data group will appear in the application.

Next, you need an edit page where you can add the edit fields and buttons.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select the "Hardware" data group and right-click.

  2. Select "New > Input page".

    The "Input page properties" dialog box is displayed.

  3. Enter "Enter hardware" in the title. This title will be displayed later in the application.

  4. Click on "OK".

    The edit page will now appear in the application.

The new pages are not immediately displayed in the portal or in the browser. They must be added to the application menu first.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select the "Manage hardware" application and right-click.

  2. Select "Properties".

    The "Application properties" dialog box is displayed.

  3. Switch to the "Application menu" tab.

  4. In the "Available pages" area, select the "Record hardware" entry.

  5. Move the "Record hardware" entry to the "Selected pages" area.

    To do this, click on the icon.

  6. Click on "OK".

    You will return to the Application Designer.

In the next step, we want to view the application for the first time in the portal, or rather browser. (This will help us check our work progress).

To do this, the new application needs to be published.

You can also decide to publish the application once you have completed it. If you want to do this, skip this step for the moment and carry it out as step 10.

In the course of publishing an application for the first time, you will be asked to specify where the application should be integrated in the portal menu.

In our case, the newly created application "Manage hardware" (1) should be called up under the main menu item "SELFSERVICE" (2).

There is currently no "SELFSERVICE" menu item in the portal. To obtain the "SELFSERVICE" menu item, we rename the "SYSTEM" menu item, which already exists by default, to "SELFSERVICE".

Step-by-step guide

  1. In the main menu, click on the icon (Publish optimized application).

    The "Edit menu" dialog box is displayed.

    The "Edit menu" dialog box is only displayed automatically the first time the application is published. However, you can change the settings made here manually at any time via "Portal > Edit menu structure".

  2. Open the "Home" menu folder in the left-hand area.

    The newly created "Manage hardware" application is currently sorted there.

  3. Use drag-and-drop to move the "Manage hardware" application to the "System.

  4. The dialog will look like this afterwards:

  5. Click on the "System" menu folder.

  6. In the right pane, change the title of the menu folder from ""System"" to ""Self-service"".

  7. Click on "OK".

  8. Click on the icon (Open connected portal in browser).

    The portal will open in the browser.

  9. Click on SELFSERVICE > Manage hardware.

    The (still empty) pages "Overview" and "Manage hardware" are displayed.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select the "Enter hardware" input page.

  1. Select the "Input field" basic control and place it on the input page using drag-and-drop.

    The "Properties - Input field (New)" dialog box (1) is displayed.

  2. Click on "Next".

    The "Properties - Input field (New)" dialog box (2) is displayed.

  3. Enter "Name" in the Title field.

  4. Click on "Next".

  5. The "Properties - Input field (New)" dialog box (3) is displayed.

  6. Click on "Finish".

    The edit field is shown with the field label on the edit page.

  7. You can now drag and drop the edit field and the field label to the desired location.

  8. Add the "Position" input field in the same way.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Select the basic control "Button" and place it on the input page using drag-and-drop.

    The "Properties - Button (New)" dialog box (1) is displayed.

  2. Select the "Text" menu item in the left-hand section of the dialog window.

  3. Enter "Save" in the Title input field on the right-hand side of the dialog box.

  4. Switch to the "Actions" tab.

  5. Select the "Save" value in the "Action type" selection field.

  6. Select the "Create new data record" option at the bottom of the dialog box.

  7. Click on "OK".

    The Save button is displayed on the edit page.

    You can drag-and-drop the Save button to the desired location.

When adding a drop-down list, there are three different steps:

  1. Adding the "Selection list" element

  2. Add the selectable list entries

  3. Add a data field to the data group. The respective selection of the user is stored in this data field.

    Data fields can be created via the context menu of the data group. However, they can also be created while adding an element.

    The following step-by-step guide uses the second option.

Step-by-step guide

Adding the element

  1. Select the "Selection list" element under "Basic controls - Lists" and place it on the input page using drag-and-drop.

    The "Properties - Selection list (New)" dialog box (1) is displayed.

  2. Enter "Hardware" in the Title field.

  3. Activate the "Show title in control" checkbox.

  4. Click on "Next".

    The "Properties - Selection list (New)" dialog box (2) is displayed.

    Add list entries

  5. Click on the icon (Add new user-defined value).

    The "Properties - List entry" dialog box is displayed.

  6. Enter the text "PC" in the "Displayed value" input field.

    The text in the "Saved value" field is filled in automatically.

  7. Click on "OK".

  8. Carry out the same step for the "Laptop" and "Tablet" list entries.

    Subsequently, the dialog looks like this:

  9. Activate the "Preselection" checkbox in the "PC" row.

    Most employees have a PC. Therefore, it is a good idea to display this value by default. Most employees then only need to confirm this value by clicking "Save".

  10. Click on "Next".

    The "Properties - Selection list (New)" dialog box (3) is displayed.

    Add data field

  11. Click on the icon (Create new data field).

    The "New data field" dialog box is displayed.

  12. Enter "Hardware selection" in the Title field.

  13. Click on "OK".

    You return to the "Properties - Selection list (New)" dialog box.

    The newly created data field is shown.

  14. Click on "Next".

    The next dialog will open.

  15. Click on "Finish".

    The drop-down list is shown on the edit page.

    You can drag-and-drop the drop-down list to the desired location.

To make the entered and saved data visible, we add a view table on the "Overview" page. There are two different steps to this:

  1. Adding the "View table" element

  2. Define which data fields from the data group should be displayed in the view table

Step-by-step guide

Adding the element

  1. Open the "Overview" page.

  2. Select the "View table" element in the bottom left-hand area under "Overviews" and place it on the page using drag-and-drop.

    The "Properties - View table (New)" dialog box (1) is displayed.

    Select data fields

  3. Click on the icon.

  4. Select "Data field".

    The "Select column" dialog box appears.

  5. Highlight "Hardware selection", "Name" and "Position" (while holding down the control key).

  6. Click on "OK".

    You return to the "Properties - View table (New)" dialog.

    The selected data fields are now shown.

  7. Click on "OK".

    The view table is displayed on the "Overview" page.

    You can drag and drop the view table to the desired position and also resize it.

You have finished the application with this step.

The application can now be published and used.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Click on the icon (publish optimized application) in the main menu.

  2. Click on the icon (Open connected portal in browser).

  3. Click on SELFSERVICE > Manage hardware.

  4. Switch to the "Enter hardware" page.

    The application can now be used in a live system.

    On the ""All entries"" page, the (respectively) updated records are displayed.

Next steps

These could be next expansion stages for your project:

  • For purchasing new hardware, you could add another drop-down list that contains the employees who are allowed to approve the hardware purchasing.

  • You could implement a purchasing and approval workflow. Such a workflow is implemented in the free "Shop" application template. You can customize this according to your needs.

  • Instead of manually entering employees, you can, for example, connect your company's Active Directory to Intrexx.

  • ...