Result
The aim of the tutorial is to successfully configure the calendar context to ensure that the correct time buckets will be created. This is extremely important as all aggregations and roll-ups will utilize this time context.
Tutorial steps
- Change the week - to start on a Monday, instead of the default
- Change the day - to start at 07:00, instead of the default
- Change the shift pattern - to only have 2 shifts, a day shift from 07:00 to 19:00 and a night shift from 19:00 to 07:00, instead of the default
Now that you can find your way around Flow Config, let’s start configuring your system. One of the first things to do is configure your reporting Calendar. Flow can use multiple Calendars, but for the purposes of this tutorial, we will configure the default "Production" calendar.
Select the "Tools" tab at the top of the Information Model view, then expand the "Calendars" node in the tree. Double-click the "Production" calendar…
Now change your Week to start on a Monday and your day to start at 07:00 am instead of the default settings.
Shift Patterns
Expand the "Production" calendar. By default, your new Flow System’s "Production" calendar has a pre-configured Shift Pattern. Shift Patterns in Flow are defined by a Date and Time from which the Shift Pattern is valid. Additional Shift Patterns can be added to the calendar, as long as they have a different Date and Time. This mechanism provides the ability to change Shift Patterns over time.
Double-click the "20xx-01-01 06:00" Shift Pattern to open its editor …
Notice that this default Shift Pattern has a 3 x 8 hour shift scheme, repeating each day of the week. The start of the week is defined by the Shift Pattern’s parent Calendar. The start of the day is defined by the Shift Pattern’s parent Calendar.
By definition, a Shift Pattern has a duration of one week (i.e. 7 "Production" days). Flow will repeat the pattern from the Date and Time definition every week, up until a new Shift Pattern definition is found.
If you needed to start a new 2 x 12-hour shift scheme, starting on Sunday 1st November 2016, you would create a new Shift Pattern named "2016-11-01 06:00" under the "Production" Calendar. You would then open the Shift Pattern and shuffle the individual shifts around as required, by selecting the relevant shift/s and dragging the shift "handles" to adjust the shift duration.
Alternatively, you can right-click on a shift, and choose to insert a shift above or below the selected shift; or delete the selected shift altogether.
Note that when removing shifts, adjacent shifts will always "link" to each other – this is because one cannot have a calendar with blanks, or no shifts, configured for any duration of time.
If you need to rename or add a new "Shift" type, you will find the Shifts defined in the "Toolbox" tab, under "Shifts".
You can drag these "Shifts" onto the Shift Pattern canvas to create and manage your shift patterns.
Change your Shift pattern to only have 2 shifts, a day shift from 07:00 to 19:00 and a night shift from 19:00 to 07:00, instead of the default.