Acumatica Generic Inquiry (GI) Standards for DataSelf Enterprise

GIs for DataSelf Enterprise

GI Header

• Inquiry Title (GI Name):
  • DS_XX_TableName  where XX is the module code and TableName is the full SQL table name (which may or may not start with the module code). 
  • TableName is the same as in Acumatica (including upper/lower case).
  • If TableName looks cryptic, please add _FriendlyName. Ex.: DS_AM_WC becomes DS_AM_WC_WorkCenter. 
• Site Map Location: By default, we set it Primary Lists (under the Hidden tree)
• Screen ID:  DSEMMXXX
  DSE is DataSelf Enterprise (DS is the official prefix designated by Acumatica for DataSelf GI's.)
  MM is the module code.
  XXX are the first three letters of the table name, or other abbreviation in case of duplicates. 
• Expose via OData: enable it
• Other GI header parameters are optional.

GI Tabs

• Tables: One Acumatica table per GI
• Conditions: 
  • Create a condition on this tab when only part of the data is needed for BI purposes. This will improve the data extraction process, and reduce load to Acumatica's database.
  • On the other hand, there's usually no value in creating separate GIs from the same table (ex.: a GI for each document type from a transaction table). The best place to do data prep is in the data warehouse and the BI platform. 
• Results Grid: See section below. 
• Relations / Parameters / Grouping / Sort Order / Entry Point / Navigation: Leave them all blank.

Results Grid Tab

• All fields have Captions (enable Captions with the icon on the top-left corner of the list of fields 

  

  ).
• Only import fields that will be used for BI purposes. Bringing unnecessary fields will negatively affect long-term maintenance: additional adjustments especially when upgrading Acumatica, performance hits in Acumatica and data warehouse, additional disk space, and backup procedures. You can always edit the GI later to add more fields.
• The Results Grid Tab should have NO yellow exclamation marks. Some of fields with exclamation marks should be replaced with their formulas (key fields). The other fields should be removed from the GI (they can be linked in the data warehouse). 
• Usually, the caption is the source field name (from the Data Field column, including upper/lower case). No spaces in the Captions.
• Caption Exceptions: Many fields (like transaction types) return a business description. (ex.: GLTran.TranType returns a description, and =[GLTran.TranType] returns the transaction type code). 
  But we need the transaction code to link the tables! In this case, use a formula In the Results Grid tab, have one line for the description and one for the formula. The _Desc field can be used as the Primary Key for Update refreshing. See table below.
• DataSelf uses the primary keys that are in the SQL-based sample data. This may differ from the keys listed in DAC.
• Test the View Inquiry results to see which keys need to be formulated.