THOR Documentation

8/9/2011

Table of Contents

THOR Documentation

Introduction

Objects in THOR

Navigation

Getting Started

User Interface Elements

Add New Objects

Action Links

Global Navigation

About This Object

Name of Current Object

Path to Current Object

Name of Current User

Contents of the Current Object

Action Links Webpart

Edit…

Save

Save with Override

Cancel Changes

Run Report

Delete

Restore

Copy to New

Import Objects

Filter List

Bulk Edit

Move to Folder

View History

View Deleted Items

Security

Delete All Children

Install Sub-Folders

Impersonate

View Notifications

Export to Excel

Print View

Export to CSV

Export to XML

Update Instance Names

Data Entry

Bulk Imports

Upload file

Field mappings

Sample Import

Finished

Reporting

Filtering

Example: Reporting on Installed Applications

Example: Reporting by Facility

Print View

Security

Creating New Schema Objects

Form Designer Controls

Common Control Properties

Ordering Controls/Fields

Creating Relationships

Save Schema

Definitions & Acronyms

Object

Object Definition

THOR

Trigger

Webpart

Dashboard

Nested Field(s)

Delegate

Administrator

Site Manager

Schema

Survey

Assessment

Reports

Relationship

Version

Tooltips

Edit Mode

Introduction

Welcome to THOR, The Healthcare Object Repository!

Object (n.) 1.A thing of significance, either real or conceptual, about which the business or system being modeled needs to hold information.2. A self-contained piece of data that can be referenced as a unit. In THOR, object definitions are created by Administrators and Form Designers. An object definition is analogous to a database table; an object would be a record in that table.

THOR is a multipurpose, Web-based tool that captures and stores information of all sorts, relates it to other information, and provides reporting capabilities on the information it holds.

Objects in THOR

Everything in THOR is an object. An object is a set of values just like a row in a spreadsheet. The list of attributes that make up an object (i.e. its columns) are defined by the object’s schema. For example, a “Facility” schema could specify that all facility objects have a name field that is required, a phone number, an address, and a list of employees. All sorts of field types are available when creating a schema object. These different field types enforce data validation rules to make sure that data in THOR is as clean as possible.

Objects are categorized in THOR by dividing them up in to folders just like in Windows Explorer. For example, all “Facility” objects can be stored in a folder named “Facilities”, and all “Person” objects can be stored in a folder named “People”.

One of the key features in THOR is that these lists of objects can be related together. Each schema object has a list of relationships that connect it with other schema objects. For example, the “Facility to Employee” relationship is very common. In this case, the “Facility” schema object has a field called “Employees”. When a facility object is edited, the author can select objects from the “People” folder to build the list of employees.

Navigation

Getting Started

Follow these steps to log in to THOR:

  1. In Internet Explorer, go to
  2. Select your account from the list to get to the login page.
  3. Enter your credentials and click “Login”. If your account is using Dell Americas security, you will not see a web based login form. If you are logged in to the Dell Americas domain on your computer then you will not be prompted to log in. Otherwise you will be prompted with a Windows authentication prompt for your Dell Americas credentials.
  4. After logging in, the user will first see the THOR home page. This page shows a list of all of the top level folders that the user can access. The user can click on each folder to browser the data stored in THOR.

User Interface Elements

Add New Objects

For folders, this webpart lists the different types of objects that can be created in the folder. Click on the link to begin creating a new object.

Action Links

Contains a list of links that perform different actions on the current object. This list changes based on the type of object currently selected as well as the security of the current user. See the “Action Links” section for details about each of the possible actions.

Global Navigation

  • Home – Returns the user to the THOR home web page.
  • Objects – Takes the user to the top level list of folders.
  • Reports – Goes to the “Reports” folder where users can create and run saved reports.
  • Help – View this document
  • Search – Searches all of the objects for the given keyword.

About This Object

The “About This Object” webpart provides information about the object currently being viewed, along with links to display information about the history of the object and the people who created and last modified the object. See the “View History” section under the “Actions Link” webpart, for more information on this feature.

Name of Current Object

Shows the current object’s name.

Path to Current Object

Shows a list of hyperlinks of the chain of folders that contain the current object. The user can use these links to quickly navigate the tree of folders.

Name of Current User

Shows the current user’s name. The link will take you to the “Person” object for the current user.

Contents of the Current Object

For folders, this shows a grid with all of the objects in the current folder. For all other types of objects, this shows a detail view of the object. Each field is displayed on its own row.

Data Entry

The Home page lists objects relevant to the logged-in user, typically facility-specific surveys in which data may be entered. This list of surveys may be considered a to-do list for entering facility information. Deadlines for these tasks are also listed, along with any relevant comments.

Here is an example set of folders from the home page of a THOR instance:

When entering data there may be times where an object that needs to be referenced does not yet exist in the THOR system. For example, while creating an entry for “Application Installations”, you find you want to relate the application to the server on which it runs. When you try to select the server from the list, you find it does not yet exist in the “Servers” folder. The information already entered for the Application Installation may be saved and exited, and the related object created; or, the “Add New”button from within the “Browse” dialog box will allow you to create the new “Server” object in a separate window, and then come back to the “Application Installation” object you were originally entering. Please see the section below, on “Related Objects”, for more details.

Related Objects

Objects in THOR are tied to one another through pre-defined relationships, such as one between “Application Installation”and“Server”. The below diagram illustrates a few relationships that exist between four defined objects in THOR.

The relationship between Application Installation and Server allows you to report on which server(s) is hosting a particular application, as well as which applications are installed on a certain server. These relationships are created as you complete data entry forms, every time you select to enter a related object, such as person, vendor, or server.

Example: Entering a new Server object

  1. From the My Surveys webpart on the THORHome page, or from the list under Related Objects on the facility object View page, select D. Servers.
  2. A list of any existing Server data is displayed, if any has been entered or uploaded; otherwise the screen displays No Items and the list is blank.
  3. Select Add New “Server” from the Folder Actions menu in the left-hand menu bar.
  4. The browser now shows a blank entry for a New Server, or in other words, a new Server object in Edit mode. Enter the information in the appropriate fields, noting that fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are required.

NOTE: Many fields have associated tooltips, providing extra instruction on what is being asked. You can find these by hovering over the field caption.

  1. Select for Manufacturer, to select the organization or company that made the server. A list will display in a new window, of the entire existing Facility Vendor object. If you do not see the needed one listed, you can add a new one. See the Related Objects section above for more details.

NOTE: This establishes a relationship between the two objects.

  1. When complete, you may enter Save from the “Actions” menu, or “Save & Add New” if you are going to enter a new Server object.
  1. After saving a newly-created object, you are taken to the D. Servers page, in View mode. Each of the Server objects is listed here, including the one just entered.

Action Links Webpart

The “Actions” webpart contains alist of links that perform different actions on the current object. This list changes based on the type of object currently selected as well as the security of the current user.

Below is the list of possible actions. If an action is only available on a certain type of object, the “Object Type” line will specify which type of object is required. The “Security Role Needed” line will be given when the user must have a security role in order to see the action.

Edit…

Security Role Needed: Update

This is the most useful action link. Clicking this will put the page in “Edit” mode so that the object can be changed. While in “Edit” mode, the action links will change to the following:

Save

Validates that the new information passed all validation rules. If the data is valid, the changes are saved and the page is returned to the regular “View” mode.

Save with Override

Security Role Needed: Admin

Saves the changes and returns the page to “View” mode even if the data fails the validation check.

Cancel Changes

Return to “View” mode without saving changes.

Run Report

Object Type: Report

Executes the report and displays a table with the results.

Delete

Security Role Needed: Delete
Object State: Not Deleted

Deletes the current object. If the current object is a folder, the entire folder will be deleted. When clicked, the object will be immediately deleted, but the data is not lost. The page will be refreshed and this action will be replaced with a “Restore” link. Click “Restore” to undelete the object. Deleted objects can also be recovered by going to the parent folder and using the “View Deleted Items” action link.

Restore

Security Role Needed: Delete
Object State: Deleted

Undeletes the current object.

Copy to New

Object Type: not “Schema”
Security Roles Needed: “Add Child” and “Can Create Instance”

Copies the values of the current record to a new record for editing. [*Note: There is a documented bug that does not copy over the related fields.]

Import Objects

Security Role Needed: Add Child

Users may upload bulk data in .CSV format (see the “Data Entry” section for more instructions on using this feature).

Filter List

Object Type: Folder

This feature allows you to display only the list of objects that you are interested in, based on criteria you enter into an entry form for that object. Click on “Apply Filter” in the Actions menu, and only those records matching the criteria you entered will display. If a folder is applied to the current folder, then this link will be displayed as bold.

Bulk Edit

Object Type: Folder

When the current folder is being filtered, the user can use “Bulk Edit” to make a change to all of the objects that match the filter criteria.

Move to Folder

Security Role Needed: Add Child

Users with sufficient access may relocate objects to other folders.

View History

Displays a history of changes on the current object or folder, including the date of the change, who made the change, and the name of the object. Changes between versions are highlighted in light red. There is also a Rollback feature in the View History view that allows users to revert back to a previous version of the object. Note: Rolling back to a previous version is permanent and cannot be undone.

View Deleted Items

Object Type: Folder

Displays a list of objects that have been previously deleted.Objects can be restored from this page by clicking on the object link, then clicking “Restore” on the Actions menu.

Security

Security Role Needed: Admin

Allows the admin to configure permissions on the current object. If the current object has security defined, this link will be displayed in bold.

Delete All Children

Security Role Needed: Delete All Children
Object Type: Folder

After confirming the action, all objects contained with the current folder are deleted.

Install Sub-Folders

Object Type: Facility
Security Role Needed: Admin

Creates a set of sub-folders in the current facility based on a defined template facility.

Impersonate

Object Type: Person
Security Role Needed: Admin

In order to help troubleshoot a user’s problem, an admin can find the user’s “Person” record and click this “Impersonate” action. The admin can then interact with THOR as if the admin was logged in as the troubled user. Click the “Stop Impersonating” link in the top right to return to turn this feature off and go back to using the admin’s true identity.

View Notifications

Security Role Needed: Admin

Used to view the notifications attached to the current object. Notifications are attached to events such as “object changed” or “object created”. Notifications can send emails or run custom tasks.

Export to Excel

Object Type: Folder
Security Role Needed: Admin

Sends the results of “Print View” to an Excel spreadsheet.

Print View

Object Type: Folder

Displays a list of all objects in a printable HTML table format. For large folders, this can be quite slow to display

Export to CSV

Displays the current object as a CSV file.

Export to XML

Security Role Needed: Admin

Used for moving THOR objects between THOR instances.

Update Instance Names

Object Type: Schema

When the formula used to generate object instance names is changed, this action will look at all non-deleted instances of the current schema and reevaluate their names. If the name is different, the object will be saved.

Data Entry

Bulk Imports

THOR provides a bulk upload feature, available from inside any folder configured to hold objects. Anyone who has permission to add new objects to a folder can use the import feature. Selecting “Import Objects” from the “Actions” webpartwill take the user to the “Import Objects” wizard. The wizard is composed of 4 steps:

Page #1 – Upload File

  • Data Source – Either “CSV File” or “Free Text”
  • CSV File – Import data from a CSV file
  • Free Text – Import data from the text pasted into the text area control.
  • CSV File – Browse the CSV file containing the data to import. The schema of the .CSV file should match the Object Definition schema as closely as possible, although there is a field-matching feature that allows you to confirm the file data goes to the correct location.
  • Text – When using the “Free Text” data source, this is the data to import. The data should be in the same format as the CSV file.
  • Type of Child Object to Add – Select the type of object that should be added to the folder. In most cases there will only be one option because you may only select child object types that are allowed in the current folder.
  • Synchronize Objects
  • Not checked - All records in the data file will be created as new records when they are imported.
  • Checked – Records in the data file will be matched with existing THOR records in the current folder. If a match is found, then the existing record will be updated instead of a new record being created. If a match is not found, then a new record will be created. The next page in the wizard lets you select how a match is determined between the old and new objects.
  • Delete THOR Objects not in the CSV – This option is only available when “Synchronize Objects” is checked. When checked, existing THOR records will be deleted if no matching record can be found in the data file.

Page #2 – Field Mappings

This page allows you to verify field mappings between the import file and the fields in the new record. As long as the column names in the source file match the names of the fields, then the mappings will be automatically created. If needed, the destination column can be set to “Ignore” if the source column should not be used.