About Behavior Section Fields

Field-level behavior defines how a field behaves. The Behavior section of the New Field window or the window that appears when you select a field to edit allows you to define the behavior of a field.

When you define a field property in the Information section of the New Field window, the corresponding options appear in the Behavior section. If a behavior is not supported for a field, in the Behavior section, the option is disabled and displays the value Not Supported. For example, for a field with the Character data type, the Format Value option is disabled and displays the value Not Supported.

By default, the fields that are supported are set to the APM Default option, which indicates that the baseline GE Digital APM rules are applied (that is, the function for that rule type is not defined within the field-specific code item). For the fields of a baseline GE Digital APM family, the rules defined in the Rules Library are inherited at the field level. For a baseline family, the APM Default option indicates that the baseline rules are applied. Depending on the rules that are inherited from the Rules Library, the field may not have any behavior. For the fields of a custom family (a family that is added to the GE Digital APM baseline database), the APM Default option indicates that no rules exist.

In a parent family, when you set the behavior for a field that is spread to its subfamily, and if the field behavior contains a field that is not available in the subfamily, the inherited field behavior for the subfamily is set to APM Default. For example, in the parent family, if you modify Field 1 that is spread to its subfamily and you select Field 3 as the Literal Value for Field 1, and if Field 3 does not exist in the subfamily, the behavior of Field 1 in the subfamily is set to APM Default.

The following table describes the parameters in the Behavior section.

Parameters	Description	Parameter Options
Default Value	Defines the default value for a field.	When you create a new record in Record Manager, by default, the APM Default option is selected. The parameter has the following option: Literal Value: The default value is either the value of the field that you select from the drop-down list box or the value that you enter in the drop-down list box.
Disable Value	Determines whether the field should be disabled or locked from editing.	The Disable Value parameter contains the following options: Always Disabled: Disables the field and does not allow you to modify the value. Never Disabled: Enables the field and allows you to modify the value. When you create a new field, by default, this option is selected. Advance: Disables the field when the specified condition is met. The Advance option allows you to set a condition for a field on the datasheet. You can use this option to compare the values based on the expression that you select. When you select this option, drop-down list boxes appear that allow you to select fields of the family or enter a value that needs to be compared, and to select the expression for the comparison. Note: The current field, for which you are setting the behavior, will not appear in the drop-down list box.
Format Value	Determines the formatting rules that should be applied to the value of a field. Only the Numeric and Date data types support the Format Value parameter.	The Format Value parameter contains the following options: For a Numeric data type, the parameter displays the following options: Currency: Formats the value as currency, based on the following settings: The Windows Regional Options of the machine from which the GE Digital APM is accessed. The number of digits after the decimal point that is specified in the Configuration Manager. When you select this option, a text box appears, displaying the currency symbol associated with the Regional Options settings of your machine. You must choose this option only if all the values in the database are of the same currency and all the machines in your organization have the same Regional Options settings. Fixed Digits Before Decimal Point: Defines the number of digits before the decimal point. Fixed Digits After Decimal Point: Defines the number of digits after the decimal point. Scientific: Formats the field values as a scientific number. General: Defines whether the value should display in fixed or scientific format, depending on which one is shorter. Numeric: Displays the thousands separator. Additionally, you can specify the number of digits that should appear after the decimal. Hexadecimal: Formats the field values as hexadecimal numbers. Additionally, you can specify the minimum number of digits for a value. If the number of digits of the value is lesser than the specified number of digits, leading zeros are added to the value. Percent: Formats the value as a percentage, including a percent sign (%). Additionally, you can specify the number of digits that should appear after the decimal. Custom Format: Formats the value according to the custom options that you define. You can define one or more characters to appear either to the right or left of the value. Additionally, you can define the number of digits that should appear after the decimal point by entering zeros such as .0000, where each zero that you enter indicates a decimal place that will be displayed. You can enter any number of zeros. For a Date data type, the parameter displays the following options: Short Date: For example, 3/31/2015. Long Date: For example, Tuesday, March 31, 2015. Short Time: For example, 4:30 P.M. Long Time: For example, 4:30:00 P.M. Date and Time Short: For example, Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 4:30 P.M. Date and Time Long: For example, Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 4:30:00 P.M. General Short Time: For example, 3/31/2015 4:30 P.M. General Long Time: For example, 3/31/2015 4:30:00 P.M. RFC 1123: For example, Tue, 31 March 2015 16:30:00 GMT. ISO 8601: For example, 2015-03-31T16:30:00. Month and Date: For example, March 31. Month and Year: For example, March 2015. Year: For example, 2015.
Hide Field	Determines whether a field should be shown or hidden.	The Hide Field parameter contains the following options: True: Hides the field. False: Displays the field. Advance: Hides the field when the specified condition is met. The Advance option allows you to set a condition for the field. You can use this option to compare the values based on the expression that you select. When you select this option, drop-down list boxes appear that allows you to select fields of a family or enter a value that needs to be compared, and to select the expression for the comparison. Note: The current field, for which you are setting the behavior, will not appear in the drop-down list box.
Masked Field	Determines whether the characters entered in the field should be masked.	The Masked Field parameter contains the following options: True: Masks the characters that you enter in the field. You can specify this behavior for a field in which you will add sensitive information (For example, a Password field). False: Displays the characters that you enter in the field. By default, the parameter is set to False.
Required	Determines whether a value must be entered in a field before you save a record in the family. If you do not enter a value in a required field, then an error message will be displayed when you attempt to save the record.	The Required parameter contains the following options: Always Required: Defines that a value is required for the field. Note: If you set the Required value for a field to Always Required, the Spread to Subfamilies check box will be selected and disabled, and the field behavior will be replicated to all subfamilies of the current family. Never Required: Defines that a value is not required for the field. Advance: Defines that a value is required when the specified condition is met. The Advance option allows you to set a condition for the field on the datasheet. You can use this option to compare the values based on the expression that you select. When you select this option, drop-down list boxes appear that allow you to select fields of that family or enter a value that needs to be compared, and to select the expression for the comparison.
Validation	Defines the validation rules that will be used to validate values that are entered in a field. By selecting Validation, you can force the values in a field to conform to specified limits or criteria that are considered valid. You can define Validation rules for any field. Only the Numeric and Date data types support the Validation parameter.	The Validation parameter contains the following options: Greater Than (>): Defines that the value entered in the field must be greater than the specified value. Greater Than or Equal To (>=): Defines that the value entered in the field must be greater than or equal to the specified value. Less Than (<): Defines that the value entered in the field must be less than the specified value. Less Than or Equal To (<=): Defines that the value entered in the field must be less than or equal to the specified value. Between Exclusive: Defines that the value entered in the field must be between the two specified values but cannot include the specified values. Between Inclusive: Defines that the value entered in the field must be between the two specified values and can include the specified values. Equals To (=): Defines that the value entered in the field must be equal to the specified value. For a Numeric data type, on selecting an option, a drop-down combo box appears that allows you to either enter a value in the text box, or select a value from the list, which will be used to perform the validation. Note: The current field, for which you are setting the behavior, will not appear in the drop-down combo box. For a Date data type, to specify a date, select ().
Valid Value	Defines a list of values that will be available for selection. Only the Character or Text data types support the Valid Value parameter.	The Valid Value parameter contains the following options: System code and Table: Defines a list of values that should appear in the drop-down list box from a System Code Table. Static List: Defines a list of values that should appear in a drop-down list box. When you select this option, a text box appears and you can enter a value that should be displayed in the drop-down list box, and then select Add. APM Query: Defines a list of values that should appear in a drop-down list box by using a query. When you select this option, the Query box appears, where you can select the query from which you want to populate the values. The values in the first column of the query result is used for displaying values in the drop-down list box of a datasheet. Note: Only GE Digital APM queries are supported. APM Query with Parameters: Using APM Query with parameters, you can create references so that the value of one field is filtered based on the value of another field in a datasheet. For more information, refer the example.

Example for APM Query with Parameters

For example, consider a family ‘Equipment’ with three fields Equipment (EQPT), Functional Location (FL), and Manufacturer (MFGR).

The Manufacturer field contains the following values:

ACME
BURNS
SMITH

The Equipment field contains the following values:

Compressor
Heat Exchanger
Motor
Pump
Tank

The Functional Location contains the following values:

Roanoke
Bangalore
San Ramon

To populate the MFGR field based on the EQPT and FL, you must create the following three queries:

Functional Location
Equipment
Manufacturer

Functional Location

Create an APM Query for the FL field such that all functional locations are listed.

The following image shows the sample query for functional location.

Equipment

Create an APM Query for the EQPT field that lists the equipment for a given Functional Location. In the Behavior section of the field, in the Valid Value subsection, select the APM Query option and map the Functional Location parameter of the query with the FL field such that the values in the EQPT field in the datasheet are displayed based on the values in the FL field.

The following image shows the sample query for Equipments.

The following image shows the mapping of parameters.

Manufacturer

Create an APM Query, for MFGR field, that lists the manufacturers for an Equipment. In Field Behavior section, in the Valid Value subsection, select the APM Query option and map the Equipment parameter of the query with the EQPT field such that the values in the MFGR field in the datasheet are displayed based on the values in the EQPT field.

The following image shows the sample query for Manufacturer.

The following image shows the mapping of parameters.

After the queries are created, in the Family Fields Sequence Order window, you must arrange the queries in the following order:

1. Functional Location

2. Equipment

3. Manufacturer

The following image shows an example of query arrangement in the Family Fields Sequence Order window.

Assume that the Functional Location Roanoke has the equipments Pump and Motor and with these queries in place, in a datasheet of the Equipment family if a user selects Roanoke in the FL drop-down list box, the EQPT drop-down list box will contain only Pump and Motor. And, if you select Motor in the EQPT drop-down list box, the manufacturer associated with the equipment will be populated in the MFGR field.