The Semantic Layer provides a means by which users may create Datasets for use in reporting and analytics without the need to write data queries.
The Semantic Layer Datasets are compiled code, which brings performance benefits over the traditional Coins ERP+ Designer datasets. Additional licensing is required to facilitate the code compile - OpenEdge Query Results. Please check that your Coins ERP+ set up includes this.
Note: The Semantic Layer is designed to allow cross-company reporting by default. Therefore, if you wish to filter data by specific companies in your reports, you should always include the company number field in your datasets. This is different to Coins ERP+ Designer Datasets where best practice is to write the dataset queries to restrict data to the currently logged in company.
Semantic Layer Collections
The problem:
Coins ERP+ data is stored in a large number of data tables. Finding data you need by looking through multiple tables, and many fields within each table, can be very time consuming, and does require a level of familiarity with the database that can take a long time to acquire. Once you know where the data is, writing queries to collect the data from multiple tables can be quite technical, and is often beyond the knowledge of an Excel savvy business user.
The Solution:
Collections aim to solve this problem, by providing a Business View of data as a simple list of fields with business friendly terminology. Behind the scenes, the Coins ERP+ Collection is usually querying many Coins ERP+ tables. Collections can be modular based, (for example data for Suppliers, Costs or House Lots) or several Collections may be available looking at data from different perspectives (for example, a Collection may be available for all costs, a collection for Cost transactions, a Collection for Revenue transactions, and a Collection for Commercial Manager based Costs CVR etc.). Collections provide the user with a selection of pre-defined data to select for inclusion as fields within their datasets.
From the Collections page, Coins ERP+ standard collections are prefixed %.
Any Collections not prefixed with % will be bespoke to your company.
If you are familiar with the Coins ERP+ table names, you can search for a Collection by using the Master file names such as %AVM for Suppliers, %JOB for Contracts and %VSI for Site data. You may also search for suitable Collections using the Description.
A third column, Tags, is available which will allow you to filter the collections by Group type such as Financials, Procurement or House Building (Use the advanced filter to allow this).
Semantic Layer - Building a Dataset
Navigate to Collections and click the link for the required collection.
Click the Datasets tab.
The Collection Summary page displays the Datasets currently defined within the selected Collection. Datasets prefixed with % are Coins ERP+ standard datasets.
Collections – Datasets Tab
To create a new Dataset click Add (
).Datasets Tab – Add
Give the new Dataset a unique name and a description. At this stage, leave the other fields blank. For example:
Click Save (
).Saved Dataset
The Main tab displays any mandatory fields that have been added automatically by the system. These fields are those required by the system as other fields will be dependent upon them.
To add new fields, click Open (
).This displays a list of fields that are available from within the Collection for you to include in your dataset.
Collection Fields
To build your Dataset select the fields required from the fields available list using right facing arrows to select. Once a field has been moved to the selected column, it can be highlighted and removed again using the left facing arrows.
You can use the filter to find the fields you require.
Type in a few letters of the field name, or label required, in the box below the field names and the list will be dynamically filtered. For example:
To change the order of the field in the selected column, highlight a field and use the up and down selectors
to reposition the field in the list.Continue selecting and re-ordering fields until you have all the fields you require and click Save (
).You will be returned to the Main tab, which will show all the fields currently selected.
Dataset Summary – Main Tab
