Views
The Inventory Management (IM) Master Data Improvement (MDI) architecture focuses on maintainability and reusability and has customizations in mind. This is achieved by leveraging the Base and Extension functionality (see help), the use of view variables (see help) as well as the use of embedded views (see help).
View architecture
MDI has some central Base views in which the standard layout and standard components for the respective context are defined. The following views are the main Base Views.
Outline | Base
Widget | Base
LT Chart | Base
Chart | Base
Profile View | Base
Simulation Config | Base
KPI Calculation | Base
KPI Detail | Base
KPI Chart Documentation | Base
KPI Tab | Base
This means, if you want to adjust the content (e.g., change the type of chart, expand documentation, add a new component), those views are the starting point.
The architecture diagram below shows how the individual components are connected.
“Material Insights” is your gateway to any parameter recommendations. Each material has its own “Material Profile” view which you can use to deep dive on recommendations as well as the transactions used to compute them.
 |
Validating Views and Resolving Errors
Validating the Views
Enter the Material Insights View.
Identify if any errors are generated for:
Components
Fields in tables
KPIs
Attributes
Identify if any implausibilities are generated such as values or KPIs not making sense.
Resolve any errors by choosing a different Knowledge Model object or customizing the object itself in the Knowledge Model.
Resolve any implausibilities.
Repeat Steps 2 to 5 in the Material Profile View.
Note
Identifying errors is typically easier than identifying implausibilities. You may need to work with the customer for a full assessment of potential implausibilities.
Resolving errors
Component and content errors
Identify the component or content affected by toggling in Edit mode while hovering over the component affected.
Select Edit to open the code editor, view the component definition and copy the component ID.
Open the YAML editor for the entire view.
Paste the component ID.
Select Preview Final View and copy and paste the entire component configuration into the YAML editor.
Verify that the YAML is correct and amend if necessary.
Save the YAML.
Record and attribute errors
Open the Knowledge Model.
Adjust the content or overwrite the definition in the Marketplace by adding this record and attributes ID to your Knowledge Model extension.
View customizations
In the following sections, we will look at the best practices for how to customize the application. In general, only “Material Insights” is fully self-contained for updates. All other updates are performed in the Base views or in the breakdown views (=Tabs) embedded in the ”Material Profile” view.
If something should be updated throughout the whole application, one of the Base views is the place to start in most situations (= bulk update). If a specific view should be customized, the content view itself is the place to go (=individual update).
Base Updates (Bulk Update)
As all components and layouts in the Base View are inherited by the extending views, all updates performed in the Base View are populated to the extending views. If the extending views have overwritten the configuration or the layout already, the update is ignored in the extending view. Hence updating the Base View is a powerful way to change general patterns in the application.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Update the Layout
Let’s assume that the KPI List should be removed for all Breakdown Views.
 |
To do this, navigate to the Base View “Widget | Base” and click Edit Mode.
Navigate to the KPI list and click on “Clear Column” (the broom icon).
Click Save and leave the edit mode.
Navigate to the extending views (e.g. “Consumption | Breakdown”) and you will see that the KPI list is gone.
Update Components
The update of components works very similarly. So let’s assume you want to adjust the KPI list not to show some KPIs.
 |
To do this, navigate to the Base View “Process | Base” and click Edit Mode.
Navigate to the KPI list and click Edit Component.
Click Hide for the items you want to hide.
Click Save and leave the edit mode.
Navigate to extending views and you will see that all extending views show only the KPIs defined in the base view.
Extension Updates (Content View)
While the updates in the Base Views provide potent updates to the general structure, it is still essential to customize the individual view to show the most relevant information. While the app does not do this out of the box, it is entirely possible to have different layouts across tabs.
In case specific views should be updated individually, you should navigate to the Tabs folder and look for the respective view.
Creating a new Extension View from a Base
To better understand the advantages of the Base/ Extension concept, the following section explains how to create an entirely new view focusing on a specific set of KPIs as defined in the Knowledge Model. Therefore, the already mentioned methods around Base/Extension Views are used to build a new basic view.
To simplify the process, the following example will use some existing KPIs coming from the Knowledge Model that will result in a view allowing the business user to analyze the development of the “Supplier Reliability” as well as the “Amount affected Purchase Orders”.
Note
This will also work with any other KPI created in the Knowledge Model.
To do this, create a new view called “Supplier Reliability” (as an example) in the same package where we store the other views of the MDI App by clicking on the “+” icon in the folder.
Select the Knowledge Model from the dropdown and select the View “Widget | Base” as the Base View for the new Extension View.
Once the Base for the “Supplier Reliability” view is selected, click the Create button to view an exact copy of the base view in Edit Mode.
Switch to the YAML editor by clicking on the </> button in the upper right corner to display an empty view without any Layout or Component definitions. All components you see in the View are inherited from the Base View. So far, nothing was overwritten by the Extension.
To adapt the content to show the mentioned KPIs, all we need to do is change/add the following KPIs in the components:
KPI List
Trend Chart
Drilldown table
Once the changes are made to the Base View, you can add new tables, charts depending on what you want to show for the Order Returns Process Cockpit View.