Lookup Lists

Lookup Lists store information used repeatedly throughout the application, ensuring that this data is stored uniformly. Lookup Lists can be referenced from Asset Information fields and Event fields. Lookup Lists are particularly useful for restricting a subjective assessment to a limited set of predefined values. For example, a Lookup List is an ideal way to ensure consistency in the assessment of a concept like ‘priority’. Defining Lookup list Items High, Medium and Low (with associated values of three, two and one respectively) in a Lookup List called ‘Priority’ can be used to force a choice from a predefined priority schema.

On Asset Information forms, Event forms and Global Table forms, a lookup list field will show as a drop-down, from which the user can pick an item.

Each item in a Lookup List can have a value, a comment, an icon and a item order:

  • Comment is the descriptive text visible to users in the field on the form.

  • Value is what’s passed to functions that use this lookup list field as an input. If the lookup list item has some sensible numeric value, this is often given in the Value field. For example, if the lookup list is “Anode depletion”, and the first item has a Comment of “0 - 25%”, the Value might be “25”. If the lookup list items don’t have a sensible numerical value, the Value is often set to the same text as the Comment.

  • Icon is optional. You can import icons or images, which the users can see in the field on forms and in the drop-down list when they are picking an item.

    Note: The size of the image boxes in the drop-down list is adjusted to the size of the largest image in the lookup list. Thus, we recommend that you use the same image size for all the images.

  • Item Order is also optional. If set, it controls the order that items are shown in in the drop-down list as users pick an item. You can also click the Item Order button at the top of the dialog, and ‘Item Order’ dialog will appear. From there, you can move the item with the Move Up or Move Down buttons available in the toolbar.