SimplyPats Portable Appliance Testing Software - Selecting, Sorting and Grouping Records

Have a look at the YouTube Video in addition to this Blog

There are many reasons why you may need to apply Sorting or Grouping to Records (Appliances) in SimplyPats, but ultimately it has the benefit of making certain Appliances or Groups of Appliances easier to find and view, which in return may make the process of Editing, Exporting or Printing certain appliances easier if required.

In this Blog, we will give a brief overview of common options when it comes to Sorting, Selecting and Grouping Records in SimplyPats.

Sorting Data (Single Column)

A small triangle will appear next to the Column Headers Descriptive Text as a visual marker to show that the selected column has sorting applied to it.  The Triangle will change orientation depending on which type of sort order is active: Ascending or Descending.  Simply Left Mouse Click the Column Header again to change between the two.

In the example below we have Sorted the Appliance Description Column to make it easier for us to list and see a particular Appliance Type, in this case all our LEAD’s.

Another example would be to apply sorting to the Test Date or Retest Date Columns which may be handy if you need to get a better visual overview of when Appliances were Tested or need Retesting.

Selecting All Records

If you want to Select All Records in the Main Grid, Right Mouse Click on any Record and choose Select All Records from the Menu.

*** NOTE If you are used to using Keyboard Shortcuts, you will know that it is common to use Ctrl + A to “Select All” However this does not apply to SimplyPats and the Main Grid.  Using Ctrl + A on the Main Screen will apply the Replace Abbreviations function, which may lead to inadvertently changing some of the Appliance Descriptions.

Selecting Records within a Range

To select Records within a Range, Left Mouse Click to Select and Highlight the First Record, then HOLD down the SHIFT Key on your Keyboard while Left Mouse Clicking the Last Record.

SimplyPats will now select all Records within that Range.

Going back to Sorting Records which we covered above, you could for example Sort the Appliance Description Column, select the first Record Entry for LEAD, scroll down and then Select the Last Entry for LEAD.  This would then allow us to easily select all of the LEAD’S.

Selecting Multiple Individual Records

You may want to select just a handful of individual Records, to do this we can HOLD Down the Ctrl (Control) Key on your Keyboard while Left Mouse Clicking on Multiple Records.

Each Record will be highlighted as you select them.

You can also keep the Ctrl key held down while you either use the Middle Mouse Wheel or the Scroll Bar to the right of the Main Grid when navigating up or down.

Grouping

Grouping is a great feature that may not be obvious until it is pointed out, so we will explain what it does and how to apply it below.

We touched on Grouping in Part 2 of the SimplyPats learning Channel Video which took an in depth look at Reporting, while giving an overview of different PAT Testing Report and Certification options available in SimplyPats.

Grouping basically allows you to “drill down” through the data and focus on specific Records and/or Information relating to Appliances based on Filters we apply.

Say we want to focus on all of our LEAD’s.  If we Select the Appliance Description Column Header while holding down the Left Mouse button, then Drag the Column Header into the Group By Area just above, SimplyPats will now collapse all of the Records in the Main Grid and separate them into Groups.

If we now Left Mouse Click on the + Icon next to LEAD, the group will be expanded allowing us to focus on just our LEAD’s without all of the other data getting in the way.

We can now select individual LEAD’s or All our LEAD’s using the methods we went through above.

Multiple Groups

There are times when you may want to apply more complex filtering, such as focusing on Appliance X in Location Y for example.

In this instance we can apply Multiple Grouping as shown in the example below.

We have added the Appliance Description Column Header to the Group By Area, as shown above.  We have also then added the Location Column Header to the Group By Area, which has now given us a Group within a Group.

When we expand our LEAD’s Group, we can see that we have an additional group for Locations within that Group.  This allows us to focus on All LEAD’s located within the KITCHEN in this example.

Grouping makes it very easily to focus on and Edit or Select certain Records ready to apply Bulk Changes, or to include just those items on a Report.

To clear any Grouping you can either Drag and Drop the Headers back from the Group by Area onto the Column Header in the Main Grid, select the “Clear Any Groups” Option from the “View” Menu or click on the Close Groups Icon.