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About Feature Tables

Use Feature tables to define the features and feature values of a product. For example, color is a feature and red, green, and blue are values for that feature. Each pageset in an Interactive Designer project includes one or more Feature tables for each feature related to that product.

Information in Feature tables can be used to populate the UI controls that appear on Display pages in your application. Use Configuration tables to define valid and invalid combinations of feature values. For more information, see Creating Configuration Tables.

There are four types of Feature tables:

Standard Feature Tables

Use standard Feature tables to define your features.

Linked Feature Tables

Use Linked Tables when Feature table information needed for multiple UI controls is identical. For example, if you have an Interior Color Feature table for a Car pageset and you want to create an Exterior Color Feature table that uses the same set of color values, you can create the Exterior Color Feature table as a linked table. You cannot edit a linked table. To make changes to the table design or table data, edit the original table (in this example, the Interior Color Feature table).

Trigger and Target Feature Tables

Trigger and Target Feature tables are used to determine what values appear in a UI control based on a selection in another UI control. Based on the user's selection in a UI control tied to the Trigger table, different subsets of information (values a user can select) are displayed in the UI control tied to the Target table. The range of values in the target table are dynamically filtered based on the value selected from the trigger table. For more about Trigger and Target Feature tables, see About Trigger and Target Feature Tables.

Feature Table Views

You can work with Feature tables in several views:

These views are tabs in the pageset view.

Designer View

In Designer view, you design the Feature table in which you will enter your feature data. When you select the Designer tab, the Feature Table Designer opens.

Each Feature table must contain at least three columns: CODE, DESC, and DEFAULT. When you create a Feature table in Interactive Designer, these columns are automatically created.

The following table describes the three columns.

Column
Description
CODE
Abbreviated value for the feature defined in the DESC column. Contains unique values (within the column) that identify the rows in the table.
DESC
Full-length text description of the feature value. This value represents the text that appears in input UI controls on display pages in the application.
DEFAULT
Defines the initial display value for an input UI control that takes its content from the Feature table. Type "default" in the row that represents the default feature value and leave all other cells in the column blank.

In the Table Designer view, you can add additional columns between the DESC and DEFAULT columns to represent other aspects of a feature, such as price or a part number. There can be as many columns to a table as there are values to a feature.

Editor View

After you have designed a Feature table, enter data in the table by switching to the Feature Table Editor view. In the Feature Editor view, you enter the row and cell data for Feature table columns. When you select the Editor tab, the Feature Table Editor opens.

Additionally, the Row type column provides a picklist for Target tables. (See Creating Trigger and Target Feature Tables for information on creating Trigger and Target Feature tables.) For all other Feature table types, use DATA, which is selected by default. The Sequence column determines the order in which the rows are published.

For more information on creating, designing, and populating Feature tables, see Creating Feature Tables.

Feature Table Column Manager

If you have features that are common to several products you can use the Feature Table Column Manager to assign these features to products. In the Feature Table Column Manager, Feature table names display as columns. Products or other items you want to add display as rows.

You assign a feature to a product by placing a check mark in the desired Feature table column. This automatically adds the product or item as a column to the Feature table.

For more information on populating Feature tables using the Feature Table Column Manager, see Managing Feature Table Columns.


 Siebel Interactive Designer Administration Guide 
 Published: 18 April 2003