Analyzing Your Requirements
Before you actually enter the APPX Application Design menu, you may want to think through the application by following a series of steps. You may choose to document the results of your analysis in some written fashion, although it is not required. On the other hand, there is no penalty for 'thinking through' your design by using APPX directly as a prototyping tool, and making additions and revisions as you go along. The specification screens are organized so that you can develop your application in a logical way.
Although the sequence of design steps is not fixed, the following list represents one approach to performing a preliminary analysis before entering information into APPX:
Identify the tasks or functions you expect the application to perform. Organize the tasks into menus. Remember that, in APPX, a menu is a type of process, and you define menus just as you do inputs and outputs.
Next, consider what processes are required to accomplish each task defined above. Some tasks may require more than one process to achieve the desired result. Identify processes by type (menus, inputs, outputs, etc.) and assign names to each one. You may want to assign corresponding names to related processes, such as CUSTOMER QUERY and CUSTOMER LIST.
Define and analyze your application's data requirements. Identify the files and fields to be used in the application. For each file, specify the information that you need to provide when you define the file. Define the keys and other fields contained in each file to determine what attributes each field will have. Analyze all of the files in your application to identify fields with similar attributes that can be created as domains.
After you gather this information you are ready to create the design files for the new application.
Remember that APPX is very flexible, and allows for revisions and additions at any time. Do the best analysis that you can in advance, enter the specifications in APPX, and make modifications as you discover things you omitted. |