Data Entry in ResourceFirst

Overview

Forms

Forms are available only for projects. They are displayed on the Project Info page of individual Project Detail areas. This page is accessed by clicking the hyperlink in a project name field on a project page such as Project Data (and others).

Data entry in form fields is straight-forward – just left click in the field and start typing. In addition to free-form fields, there are

List Fields      –    1) Type a few characters of the desired value to filter the list or 2) click the drop-down arrow

Date Fields    –    1) Type a date or 2) select a date with the calendar control in the field.

Views

Views are laid out as grids where each column represents a field/attribute and each row an object or line item. For example, the Project Data page has a row for each project in the current data load. Each cell on a row is in a column representing some attribute of projects, such as project name or manager or start date.

Some pages also contain a numeric period data grid containing values for things such as resource capacity (hours or FTE) in each period of the current data load.

Read-Only vs. Editable Views

Some grid type pages are read-only; others have editable fields and/or period data grids.

For example, the Project Demand page is read-only, as is Resource Utilization and others.

The (Labor and Financial) Assignments pages are editable, as is Project Data and others.

Read-Only vs. Editable Fields

Fields can be configured to be read-only for everyone, or for users without sufficient rights. (See the article Administering Column Headings for details on field definition.)

Some system fields are read-only for everyone, e.g. Modified By and Modified Time.

Assignment page Views can contain native assignment fields, and referenced (“mapped”) project fields and resource fields.

Project and resource fields included in assignment Views are read-only. They can be changed only on the Project Data, Project Info, or Resource Data pages.

Locking Records and Periods

There are many ways objects and fields can be locked by administrator configuration or by user action. For a full discussion on how records and periods can be locked, see Data Locking in ResourceFirst.

View Data Entry

Note: The behavior of cells in ResourceFirst period data grids is similar to, but not identical to, cell behavior in MS Excel. This section explains those differences. Watch these two short videos to see the similarities and differences.

Cells in ResourceFirst grids are either read-only or editable. Editable cells have three states: not selected, selected, and edit mode.

A cell is put into edit mode by left mouse click or by tab from the nearest editable cell to its left that is already in edit mode.

Tab works only from a cell already in edit mode and puts the next editable cell to the right of the cell (on the same row) into edit mode (skipping any intervening read only cells).

A single cell can be selected by left mouse click.

If the cell is editable, this puts the cell into edit mode. Then click the Enter key to put the cell in Selected state. Selected state is needed when doing a Copy/Paste (both the source and at least the first target cell must be in Selected state to perform a Copy/Paste function).

A range of cells can be selected by 1) left mouse click and hold, 2) drag, 3) release left mouse button over the final cell in the target range.

Shift Click: Left mouse click and release, shift-click and release elsewhere leaves the shift-click cell in edit mode. Click the Enter key to put that cell in selected mode.

Control Click: Not supported.

Cell Behavior in Edit Mode

Cell value (if any) is selected – typing, delete key, and paste modify the value

Edit Mode is terminated by:

Enter key – cell changes to Selected state, value change if any is committed

Left Click-Mouse Up on another cell or range – cell state is Not Selected, value change if any is committed

Escape key – cell state is Selected, the cell value is unchanged

Field (Attribute) Edit

Left click in a cell and either type a value or, for list type fields, click the drop-down arrow and select a value.

Multi-Select Field Edit

Check the selection checkboxes at the left of all the rows you want to modify.

Left click in a cell of the target field on one of the selected rows, type or select a value, and click the Enter key.

[It does NOT matter which of the selected rows gets the data entry.]

Data Entry in Period Grids

The following methods can be used to enter and modify data in editable period cells:

Typing directly in a cell

Drag-Fill

Copy-Paste

Typing directly in a cell

Left click in the cell to put it in edit mode and type a value.

Drag-Fill

Select a cell or a range (i.e., left click and press enter to put it in Selected state)

Select the fill handle.

Drag up or down, or to the right or left.

Copy-Paste

Paste operations in the period data area ignore the dimensions of the target selection.

Instead, the first cell selected to make the target selection is used as the target for the top left cell of the copy.

Single cell copy to single cell selection

[The edit/selected states of the source and destination cells do not matter.]

Left click on the source cell.

Click Ctl-C.

Left click the destination cell.

Click Ctl-V.

Single cell copy to multiple cell selection

This feature is not available.

The workaround is to copy-paste or directly enter the value in a cell and then use up-down and left-right Drag-Fill to populate the target range.

Multiple cell copy

Left Click>Drag from any corner of the range to the opposite diagonal corner.

Press Ctl-C.

Left Click>Drag starting in the upper left destination cell and dragging to the lower right.

If shift left click is used to make an extended selection, it must be followed by the Enter key because that last cell is in Entry Mode.

Note: The Paste operation goes to the cell in Edit Mode if any. If no cell is in Edit Mode, the Paste goes to the active cell which is always the first cell selected to make the current selection.

An extended selection created by left click and drag from lower right to upper left results in the Lower Right cell being the active cell.

Control left click is NOT available to extend a selection.

TIP: The easiest way to create the destination for a Copy (single or multi-cell) is to left mouse click drag over two cells with the first cell selected as the target. The second selected cell is not affected by the paste.

NOTE: The Delete key works only on a single cell in edit mode. The Delete key does NOT work on a selected range.

Forms Data Entry

Fields on forms are editable unless they are read-only. Some system fields such as Modified By are inherently read-only; others may be configured by system administrators as read-only based on user rights.