Hello,

I have data in a text file that is updated and automatically output by another source, and we have it set to come out tab delimited. Is it possible for your software to link a text region to my text file to save me the trouble of typing it in every day?

-Travis

Hello Travis.D, and thank you for your question! Yes, Noventri Suite can link to a text file, and I've listed ten easy steps to get you set up with your own:

1) Once you have a text region created for one of your statistics you'd like to display, and checked the "Database" box, click on the "Advanced" tab.

2) Inside of the "Advanced" tab, you'll see two radio buttons at the top: DataText, and ODBC. You'll want to be sure that "DataText" is selected, which will be the default.

3) Don't worry about how neat the information in your text file looks. The only important thing is that there is only one tab in between each piece of information. All you need to do is confirm this.

4) Make sure that the text file is located on the network where accessible by the computer on which Noventri Server is installed.

5) Back in the "Advanced" tab, click on the "Browse" button. Browse through your network to the text file that is generated. It is important that you do not use a networked drive; be sure to use My Network Places to navigate to the file out on your network. This is because different computers will not all have the same network drives, and we need to make sure that the Noventri Server computer can find the text file.

6) Once you've selected the text file, you'll see below the "Database" field there is a "Field Defs" field. Click on the "New" button. Type in a name at the top in the "Field Definition Filename" field. This will be used for setting up additional text regions in the future.

7) Below, you'll see a checkbox that says "Has Column Name Header." This should already be checked. If you have a row at the top of your text file labeling your columns, leave this checked. If not, unselect it. Below that is a dropdown box named "Format." It will have "Fixed Width" selected. Select "Tab Seperated" in this dropdown.

8) At the bottom, in the Column Editor, we'll need to tell Noventri Suite what type of information we're getting from your text file. In the "data type" dropdown, select "String," then click the "Add" button. This tells the software that the first column is text; in our case, it is the customer column: either Ceragon or ECI. Now, change the "Data Type" dropdown to "Integer." Click "Add" again. Then, click "Add" a second time. This tells the software that the next two columns are numbers, being the "target" and "current" in your text file. Finally, select "String" and press "Add" one more time so that our yields are seen by the software. Push the "OK" button in the bottom right corner.

9) You are done in the "Advanced" tab, so go back to the "Text" tab. In the text field, type "[1:1]" (without the quotes). The first '1' stands for row 1; the 'Customer'
stands for the Customer column. Try changing the "[1:1]" to "[2:1]. Now you're getting row 2, column 1. You will see what information you have in that location appear in your text region.

10) Once you have the appropriate data in your text region, you'll need to set this up for each text region in your project. Repeat the necessary steps above, but instead of making a new Field Definition File, like you did in Step 6, simply click the "Browse" button under the "Field Defs" field. Browse to My Documents>>Noventri Suite Projects, and then the name of your current project. The Field Definition File you saved in Step 6 by typing its name will be in your project folder. Select it, and it will save you the
trouble of repeating Step 8. Alternatively, you can copy and paste the region that you've already linked, then simply change the numbers in brackets (ex. [1.1]) to the column and row you're trying to display.

You can also put multiple peices of data in a text region. For instance, "[1:1] [1:2] [1:3] [1:4]" would give you the column 1-4 information for row 1. There is no need for multiple text regions; ultimately it will depend on your working preference. It may be easier for you to format if each peice of information has its own text region.

Let me know if you need any additional assistance!