Working with Tables (Web Interface)

Many AAI screens contain tables of information about jobstreams, jobs, and schedulers. This topic describes the functions that are built into tables on AAI screens, such as sorting data and resizing, rearranging and selecting data columns.

To make the vast amounts of object and execution data accessible to you in a meaningful way, AAI tables have built-in features to help you select subsets of data and order columns and rows dynamically, as well as directly drill down to get deeper details as needed.

Not all AAI table features are available on every table. Instead, only the features that make sense to help manage the amount and type of data on a particular table is built in. This topic describes all the possible features that you might find with a table. By knowing what is available, you can recognize the features when you see them and know how to work with them.

This page includes the following:

Simple Table Actions

AAI tables contain several simple actions that you can do with a click or a drag, to arrange and explore data with ease. These include the following:

Sorting

You can sort the data rows in a table by the values in any column. You can tell which data column that a table is sorted by because you see a small arrow in the column header, pointing up for an ascending and down for descending sort. This arrow is always visible in the column header, even when you are not hovering over the header.

You can sort a table by the data values in a particular column in one of two ways:

  • Clicking the column header
  • From the column menu

Clicking the column header

To sort by a data column, hover over the column header until a small up arrow appears. Click anywhere in the column header to toggle between sorting in ascending and descending order.

You can sort only columns that allow it. When you hover over a column header and a small up or down arrow appears, you can sort by that column.

From the column menu

If a column menu is available, an icon that looks like three vertically aligned dots appears in the far right or sometimes the left of the header. Click the icon to open the column menu, then select a sort option:

  • Sort by ASC
  • Sort by DESC
  • Unsort (to return to the default sort order for the table)

Re-sizing Columns

To change the width of a column, hover over the right border of the column header, when a double arrow icon appears, click and hold, and then drag the right border left or right to shrink or expand the column width.

Moving Columns

You can rearrange the order of columns so you can see the data that you most need in one screen and so you can put columns that you want compare next to each other. To move a column, click the column header and hold the mouse while you drag and drop the column left or right to a new position.

You can also pin columns to the left or right of the table, as described next.

Pinning Columns

You can pin one or more columns to the left side and/or the right side of a table. Pinned columns stay on screen even when you horizontally scroll left and right to view additional columns. This is helpful when you want to keep many data columns open. Even when you horizontally scroll, the column or columns with the key identifiers stay on screen so that you know which object the data belongs to. For example, you might want to pin the Start Time and the Duration columns to left of the Run History table to be able to keep track of which run the remaining data is related to as you scroll through the columns.

The pin and unpin options are in the column menu, where it is available. To pin a column, hover over the column header and then click the vertical three-dot icon to open the column menu. From the drop-down menu, select Pin to left or Pin to right.

You can pin multiple columns to the left or right. When you do this, the first column you pin will be the furthest left (or right) and the next ones you choose follow. Therefore, select the columns to pin in the order you want them to be placed. You cannot rearrange pinned columns with drag-and-drop.

To unpin a column, open the column menu and select Unpin. The column returns to its previous place in the table.

Moving Rows

On some tables where the order of the rows affects the meaning or understanding of the objects, you can move the rows up and down to change the relationship of the row items, either in sequence or hierarchy.

For example, on the Domains page, you can move defined domains up and down to place them in the order of preference for the login options. For information, see Domains.

When moving rows is available, when you hover to the far left of the row, an icon that looks like a grid of dots appears. Click and hold the icon, then drag the row up or down to where you want it and then release it.

Links to More Details

Some key fields on a table can be links to other pages, panels or dialogs. These are always in blue hyperlink text. and when you hover over them, your pointer becomes a selector icon. Depending on the table, the links allow you to do the following:

  • Drill down

    Drill down to deeper information, and then return to where you were with the back button on your web browser.

  • Open a details panel

    Being able to selectively view the full details of an object is helpful for data objects that have a lot of data points. You can keep only the most relevant columns in your view, and when you need full details about one object, you can view them in a pop-up panel that opens without disrupting the table view. Click the X in the upper right corner to close such a panel. For example, you might only be showing eight columns of execution data on the Run History page for a job, but you can click the start time link for any specific run to open a panel with all execution details for that run.

  • Edit object definitions

    Open up an edit dialog to update an object definitions, such as a user, domain, or business area definition.

Built-in Table Tools

Tables can contain any or all of the following tools:

Column Menus

A column menu offers options to modify what you see in the table based on the values in the selected column. This includes sorting, pinning, hiding/showing, and sometimes filtering.

If a table column has a column menu available, when you hover over a column header, an icon that looks like three vertically aligned dots appears in the far right or sometimes the left of the header. Click this to open the column menu and access the menu items.

The Column Selector

The column selector tool allows you to choose which data columns that you want to show or hide in your table. A column selector is available on tables where each row could contain many data values, for example, the table with a job run history. Each run has a multitude of values associated with it. Rather than having to find what you want in over a dozen columns, you can hide all the columns that you don't need to see and see only what is relevant to you.

When the column selector is available you see it right above the table headers in the far right of the screen. (If you reduce your screen width too much, the column selector pops over to the far left above the table.) Click the three-bar icon, a drop-down menu appears listing all data columns that are available. Click the items to toggle between show and hide options.

Columns with key data must always be included, so the selectors for the required columns are disabled.

You can also choose to Show all columns or Hide all columns (except the required columns).

Note:

When the column selector is not available for a table, you can often find Hide and Show options in the column menus. Those options will open a pop-up column selector with the same functions as described here.

Page Selectors

For tables with more data rows than can appear on one view, you have page selectors at the bottom right below the table. In this area you can do the following:

  • From a drop-down menu, choose the number of rows per page that you want to see and scroll up and down through.
  • Click the left and right arrows to go to the next page of data or go back to the previous page.

Next to the page selector controls you see where you are in how many total rows of data. For example, 51-75 of 8320. When there are more than 10 thousand rows, you will not see the absolute total rows and you will be prompted to filter to reduce the selection.

Important to note is that the total number of rows means the total number of rows that apply to the selected filters, not to the total number of rows in the AAI database. This is helpful to understand how many records match your filter criterion.

Filters

When filtering is available for a table, there are two places that you find filtering options: from the filter icon above the table or from the column menu.

From the filter icon

From the filter icon and row, that starts at the far left above the table. Click the icon to select complex filter options. As you do, the filter options appear above the table next to the filter icon. This tells you that you are seeing a subset of data rows and what that subset is based on.

From the column menu

When there is no filter icon, you find filter options for some columns in some tables. Click the icon in the table column to open the column menu, and select the Filter menu option. A pop-up window appears with the filter fields that you can define for that table.

How to filter

For information on how to define and apply filter attributes and filter parameters in the AAI web interface, see Using Filters (Web Interface).

Exporting Table Data

On some tables, you find an Export button in the far right above the table headers. Click this to export the current data view to a CSV file, which lands in the Downloads folder of your computer.

The CSV file will contain the data as you have selected it in the table. That means:

  • If you have a filter applied, only the filtered rows will be exported to the CSV file.
  • If you have sorted the table, the data is exported in the same sort order.
  • If you have rearranged columns, the data is exported in the same column order.

See also: