Issue
Grid Layouts are the backbone of the Access Expert platform. They provide the interactivity of the lists and event views within the system.
Product Line
EcoStruxure Access Expert
Environment
Access Expert V3 Hosted
Cause
Operators may be unfamiliar with Grid Layout customization features used to filter, search, group, and display Access Expert data.
Resolution
This article provides an overview of Grid Layout functionality in Access Expert, including filtering, grouping, searching, customization options, and methods for saving and reusing layouts.
Training Resources
There are several Tech Talks compiled by Acre's training team available on YouTube that contain more detailed information:
Understanding Grid Layouts
Grid Layouts can be found throughout the platform. The most common examples are Live Monitor and Event History, the People List, and Reports.
What Makes up a Grid Layout
The Grid Layout is composed of lines of data, a sorted column, and optional groupings or filters. The data in a grid layout will vary by page, the Event History and Live Monitor pages will events in the system and the people list will show the cardholders.
The rows in these pages contain a new entry into the grid. This works similar to a spreadsheet in other programs. Each column then shows the pieces of the data contained in the row. Let's look at a row in the Event History for example.
This is an Access Granted Event. Within this event, we have several columns of data including priority, reader, card number and person, etc. If you expand the event, by clicking on the "+" button, you will see a list of extra information that can be added to your grid view as a new column.
Priority Filtering
Additional filtering can be done by selecting the Priority Legend or by manually entering a specific Priority number. The priority numbers are assigned to events to indicate priority. When using the Priority filtering, the system will only return results for events and alarms for that priority number and higher. The overall range is from 0 – 255. Additional Priority Color ranges can be configured also and will be addressed in the Alarm Priority Defaults section.
Time-Based Filtering
Information is displayed based upon what you have selected for the time frame in the upper right. Simple commands such as 1D (day) or 1h (hour) can be entered in the cell and the window will automatically be updated accordingly.
Time-based filtering includes"
- (m) for minute
- (h) for hour
- (D) for day
- (M) for Month
- (Y) for year
Operators can also search based upon specific date ranges by selecting ‘Date Range’ from the drop-down menu.
Video and Floorplan Integration
From the Live Monitoring and Event History pages, operators can easily access integrated cameras when recorded video exists with the event and even automatically link to relevant floor plans. These are configured by:
- Linking to cameras or camera views: See the “Video Integration” Section.
- Linking to floor plans: See the “Creating Floor Plans” Section.
Customizing the View
Customizing the grid view allows for the creation of a custom report using the data within the grid layout window. The windows can be modified by the operator to only show relevant information by adding, removing, and resizing individual columns as well as exposing hidden information by using the “+” button as seen in the People List window.
This example shows the Event Data for an Access Granted Event. The default view shows the Message, Reader, Card Number, and the Person. By expanding the event you can easily see that there is additional information on the event such as Facility Code, Card Expiry Date, Encoded and Displayed Card Number, and the Controller the reader is attached to.
By clicking the blue "+" button to the left of the data, we can add in extra columns such as Floor Number and Card Expiry Date as shown above. These columns can now be used to group related data together.
The Column Chooser can also be accessed by right-clicking on one of the column headers and selecting the "Show Column Chooser Option. This will open the column chooser window and allow columns to be turned on and off by checking the associated box.
Checking the box next to the column will show the column and unchecking the box will remove it from the Grid View. The column chooser has default columns to start with of:
- Priority
- Alarm Status
- Instance/Folder
- Occurred On
- Floorplan
- Camera
- Message
- Reader
- Card Number
- Person
- Event Type
- Application
- Message Short
When new columns have been added to the Grid view using the expanded Event Data view, those columns will show in the Column Chooser and can be removed by unchecking the box.
Grouping
Grouping allows the data grid to organize the data by an attribute. This can be grouping columns by date, or grouping events by Reader.
To Group the data by a column option, left-click on the column you want to group by and drag it to the top of the window where it says "Drag a column header here to group by that column" (you will see arrows on the left-hand side of that section showing that you have the header in the Group Panel or right-click on the column and select "Group by this Column".
Once a column is used to group the data, the data will reorganize into sections based on the column grouped by.
You can layer the grouping by adding another column into the Group Panel. For example, you can group by the reader and then secondarily group by Occurred On to group each reader event by the day it occurred on.
Group Interval
Within the Group Panel, the Occurred On column has an extra feature when grouped on. The Occurred On column can have a group interval set to determine how the information is organized.
The Group Intervals are:
- None: This will use the base Occurred On structure to organize the data. This will differentiate each occurred on time by second.
- Day: This is break up the dates by the day they occurred on. The days will start at midnight local time to the machine being used to look at the data.
- Month: This will break up the dates the events occurred on by the month they occurred on.
- Year: This will break up the dates the events occurred on by the year they occurred.
- Smart: This will break up the data by the intervals of today, yesterday, earlier this week, last week, etc. This is similar to how many mail programs organize data.
Filter Editor
The Filter Editor allows for additional customization and advanced logic on the data being displayed. To access the Filter Editor, right-click on a column header and select "Filter Editor".
The Filter Editor window allows for the editing of the logic applied to the window. This can be done by clicking on the 'And' in the top left corner and then selecting the operator (Or, NOT OR, or NOT AND).
The drop-down menu allows the user to change the logic being applied. This will also allow the user to add a new Condition (new sorting/logic line) or a new Group (subsection of logic steps).
Clicking on the Column (blue text) allows a different column to be chosen for the logic to be applied.
The green text allows the modification of the logic on that column. Each column chosen will have different modifiers. "Instance/Folder" will have the "Begins with" sort, "Occurred On" will not have that option but instead will have the "DateTime Operators" option.
The value is the object to be sorted/searched on. For example, searching on a given reader or given cardholder within the Event History. In the example below, we are applying the logic of only viewing events where the reader name begins with "1st" or contains "Warehouse" in the name AND if the person is either Ruth Ewert or Wendy Ewert.
If the desired effect is to isolate a singular piece from the data, say a singular reader, the opening the Filter Editor isn't necessary. Simply hover over the column header and clicking on the orange Key that becomes visible. Then select the singular object from the Filter Values list. The Filter Editor bar is then shown at the bottom of the screen and can be edited as shown above.
The Filter Rules option at the top allows for the selection of a rule to filter on. Think "Starts with 2nd" to isolate all 2nd-floor readers.
Counting Rows
It is often important to know how many events are within a subsection of the events you're viewing. The standard method of counting rows will work but within the Group Summary Editor, there is an ability to check the box to Count Rows to have the Feenics application count those rows for you.
To Enable Row Count:
- Right-Click on the sorted column
- Select the "Group Summary Editor".
- From that window click "Show Row Count"
- Click "Ok".
The row count will now show on the right-hand side of the sorted rows.
Searching
Information can further be searched by manually typing in specific information such as a name, or number. In the example below, we are searching for 30 days of information for two criteria. Criteria 1 is “Karen” and criteria 2 is “4th”. The system will automatically present information highlighted in Yellow which matches both criteria. Additional items can be added by including a space between the items being searched for.
Saving Grid Layouts
Once a view is built, it can be saved and reused later. To save a filtered view simply click “Grid Layout” then select “Save”. Once a name is applied to the Grid Layout it will automatically be saved for that operator.
Event Sources
If the operator wants to search for a specific Event Source instead of the full system, then clicking the Filters option then selecting Event Sources will open a filtering window. This will open the Event Sources window where the operator can add sources by typing in the device name. Feenics will automatically present the operator with relevant items. Once completed select OK and the system will re-filter the Event or Live windows for information only on those new sources.
