Working with user-defined enumerators

You use the UDEs page to manage a data source's user-defined enumerators.

You can add your own user-defined enumerators to data sources. User-defined enumerators are user-definable dropdown lists which you create in Server Admin and include in one or more user-defined tables. For each user-defined enumerator, you can define a name and a list of values. When the user-defined enumerator is added to a user-defined table, users can select any of the values defined within the enumerator for each object against which the user-defined table is used.

For example, you could create a user-defined enumerator called Priority and define values of High, Medium and Low. You could then add this to a user-defined table which is associated with tasks and use the enumerator to specify the priority of tasks in Asta Powerproject. Alternatively, you could create a user-defined enumerator called Manager and define values relating to the names of your Managers. You could then add this to a user-defined table which is associated with cost and income rates and use the enumerator to specify the person that sets the cost and income rates of your permanent resources.

To access the UDEs page, either:

  • In the sidebar, click a data source, then click UDEs.
  • On the Datasources page, click UDEs underneath a data source.

To create a user-defined enumerator:

  1. Click Create New. The Create New UDE page appears.
  2. Enter a name for the enumerator in the UDE name field. This name will be applied to the dropdown list, so it should reflect the use to which the dropdown list will be put. For example, if you are going to store a list of Managers in the enumerator, call it Manager.
  3. Click Add Value. The Add Value popup appears.
  4. Enter the name of the value, then click OK to return to the Create New UDE page. The value appears in the Values list.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add further values to the enumerator. These values will appear in the enumerator dropdown when it appears in a user-defined table, and users will be able to select one value from the list you enter here.
  6. You can click and drag the individual values to reorder them in the list if required. This affects the order in which they appear in the resulting dropdown list in Asta Powerproject. If you enter a value by mistake, click Remove to the right of it to remove it from the list.
  7. When you have entered all of the user-defined enumerator's values, click Save. The user-defined enumerator is created in the data source and you return to the UDEs page, where the new user-defined enumerator appears in the list.

You can edit the names and values of user-defined enumerators. You can also change the order in which the values appear in the resulting dropdown list in Asta Powerproject.

To edit a user-defined enumerator:

  1. Click the user-defined enumerator that you want to edit. The Edit UDE page appears.
  2. Edit the details of the user-defined enumerator as required.
  3. Click Save. You return to the UDEs page.

You can delete user-defined enumerators that you have added to a data source. Deleting an enumerator deletes the dropdown list and all the values it contains.

If you have added an enumerator to one or more user-defined tables, the enumerator is removed from the table(s) when you delete it and any values that have been selected from it in Asta Powerproject are deleted. If you delete a user-defined enumerator that has been used in a project, the data that has been entered into the user-defined enumerator in Asta Powerproject is converted into a string field, so the data entered into the enumerator is safe.

To delete a user-defined enumerator:

  1. Click Delete to the right of the user-defined enumerator that you want to delete. A popup appears, asking you to confirm whether you want to delete the user-defined enumerator.
  2. Click OK. You return to the UDEs page and the user-defined enumerator is deleted.

Related Topics

Working with data sources

Working with user-defined fields

Working with user-defined tables