Business System Defaults Overview

When performing project planning tasks for the Business System Design project, you can define standards that are known as system defaults. Standard defaults provide a consistent user interface to the system.
During analysis, you initialize the business system definition. The Business Systems Defaults diagram allows you to define system defaults.
The following example shows the Business System Default diagram. The asterisks identify the business system for which defaults are being defined.
Business System Default
Business System Default diagram
The objectives of the Business System Defaults are:
  • Set standard defaults for the Procedure Action Diagram, Screen Design, and Dialog Design
  • Create a consistent user interface to the business system construction process
Categories of Business System Defaults
Selecting Business System Defaults from the Design pull-down provides the following actions:
  • Properties
  • Screen Video Properties
  • Window Video Properties
  • Commands
  • Exit States
  • Function Keys
  • Special Edit Patterns
  • Field Edit Patterns
  • Delimiters
  • Web Properties
When building procedure action diagrams (PADs), standard defaults are implemented for the following:
  • Commands
  • Exit states
When building screens, standard defaults are implemented for the following:
  • Properties
  • Screen video properties
  • Window video properties
  • Text Window video properties
  • Function keys
  • Special edit patterns
  • Field edit patterns
When building a dialog flow diagram, standard defaults are implemented for delimiters.
You can override standard defaults for your system usually at the procedure step, screen, or template level.
Properties
Properties include the business system name and description.
Examples:
  • NAME = Order Maintenance
  • DESCRIPTION = Modifies the Sales Order line items.
Screen Video Properties
Screen Video Properties sets display properties (color, intensity, highlight, and justification) for prompts, fields, error messages, and literals. Screen Video Properties also define cursor placement and protection for fields and errors and blank when zero or null status for fields. The following video properties can be defined for a field:
  • Color allows fields to appear in any of the colors supported by the terminal.
  • Intensity allows fields to appear at different levels of brightness (high or dark).
  • Highlight allows fields to display with any emphasizing characteristics supported by the terminal (underscore, blink, and reverse video).
  • Justify aligns the data at either the right or the left of the field.
  • Field properties protect the field entry, define fill character after justification, and replace zeros and nulls with blanks.
  • Error properties determine cursor placement and protect the field entry.
Examples:
  • PROMPT COLOR = green
  • INTENSITY = high
  • JUSTIFY = left
Window Video Properties
Window Video Properties sets foreground color, background color, and font characteristics of an object on all the windows or dialog boxes in the current business system.
Commands
Commands direct the execution of a procedure, which implements one or more processes. By using standard commands across the system, users are comfortable in their choice of commands, regardless of the procedure being executed.
When designing a system, first populate the commands list with a standard set; then, add more commands and synonyms as needed.
To simplify the user interface, specify synonyms for commands. At execution time, the generated logic automatically translates the synonym to the command value.
Examples:
  • DISPLAY
  • DISP
Exit States
An exit state is a special attribute that describes the outcome of a process or procedure. Based on the EXIT STATE IS condition set by the action diagram, the procedure step either displays a screen or flows to another procedure step. By standardizing exit state values and messages, the same condition sets the same exit state value throughout the business system.
The Exit State action sets exit states for action diagrams and dialog flows.
Examples:
  • PROCESSING_SUCCESSFUL_COMPLETED
  • CREDIT_LIMIT_EXCEEDED
  • CUSTOMER_UNKNOWN
Function Keys
Function keys associate a command with each of the 24 function keys. In an online environment, function keys provide a shorthand for communicating commands to procedures.
Each function key definition that is specified from the system defaults panel can be specified as standard or default. Default commands map another command to a selected function key for a procedure. Standard commands assign the same command to a selected function key in every procedure step in the business system. Default function keys can be overridden; standard function key definitions cannot.
Examples:
  • F1 = HELP
  • F2 = DISPLAY
  • F3 = ADD
Special Edit Patterns
Special edit patterns modify the supplied edit patterns that control field display and input format for the system date, time, lines, and scroll indicator.
Examples:
  • DATE = MM/DD/YY
  • TIME = HH:MM:SS
Field Edit Patterns
Field Edit Patterns control field display and input formats for screen objects. Field edit patterns create an edit pattern using character symbols from the following valid characters:
Type
Valid characters
Numeric
9 Z $ + - ., * 0
Time
HH MM SS / - : (spaces)
Date
C MM DD YY YYYY JJJ / - : (spaces)
Text
0 through 9; A through Z
Mixed Text
0 through 9; A through Z; any DBCS character
DBCS Text
Any DBCS character
Examples:
  • NAME = SSN
  • TYPE = TEXT
  • PATTERN = XXX-XX-XXXX
Delimiters
Delimiters specify string separators and parameter delimiters that identify the separation of data items. Valid symbols that separate parameters in data items are spaces, commas, periods, semicolons, slashes, carets, dashes, asterisks, and plus signs. Use parameter delimiters to enclose data items during Clear Screen Input.
Example:
trancode,NAME='ANDREW',NUMBER=180161
In this case, single quotation marks represent the string separator, commas represent the parameter delimiters, and NAME and NUMBER are keywords.
Web Properties
Web Properties allows you to set certain browser features across windows and dialogs for a business system.
You can specify that the menu that is designed in the Navigation Diagram be placed horizontally across the top of the browser frame space. Otherwise the menu bar is placed vertically along the left edge starting from the top-left corner of the browser frame space.
You can also specify one image to be used for all Help buttons and one image for all Close buttons to appear on all windows and dialogs for a business system. You can also select whether to exclude the image from the web page. If you exclude the specified image for Help, the default image of "?" appears. If you exclude the specified image for the Close button, the default of an "X" appears. The specified images appear during runtime but not during design time.
More information:
How to in Business System Defaults