Views and summaries

A view is a saved way of reading your records. It holds no records of its own: each time it opens, it reads the tables it is built on, so it always shows them as they are now. A new invoice that matches its filter is in it, and one that no longer matches leaves it, without anyone saving the view again. In the app's menus a view is called a Dynamic table.

Views are how you keep the questions you ask every week, such as "who is behind on rent?", and how you give people part of a table without giving them the table.

Three kinds

• Views of one table: some of its rows, some of its fields, in the order you choose, and what can be changed through it.
• Stacking tables into one view: the rows of two or more tables one under the other, such as invoices and payments in one statement, their fields paired into shared columns.
• Summaries: rows grouped and totalled, with sums, averages and counts, and columns by year, quarter, month, week or day.

Who sees what

• Views that show each person their own records: one view whose rows depend on who opens it.
• Share a view with a role: people reach the rows and fields the view shows, and never the table behind it.

Where views live

A view belongs to a database and is listed with its tables in the sidebar. You make one from the database's New menu, choosing Dynamic table or Summary. To change it, choose its title at the top of the grid and, from the menu that opens, Edit Dynamic Table definition or Edit Summary definition. The same menu has Share view, rename and delete.

A view can be built on another view or on a summary, and a summary on a view: a summary of the "Open invoices" view totals only open invoices.

Deleting a view deletes no records. They stay in the tables the view reads.

In this section

• Views of one tableMake a view of one table that keeps some of its rows and fields in your order, decide what can be changed through it, and add formulas of its own.
• Views that show each person their own recordsFilter a view on the person reading, so one view shows every salesperson, tenant or employee only their own records.
• Stacking tables into one viewPut the rows of two or more tables one under the other in one view, such as invoices and payments in one statement, and choose how their fields pair up.
• SummariesGroup a table's rows and total them with sums, averages, counts, minimums or maximums, with columns by a field or by year, quarter, month, week or day.
• Share a view with a roleGive a role a view instead of the table, so its people reach only the rows and fields the view shows and never the table behind it.