Screen Design

When a UI is created, for each tab in the UI, a table is also created. It is in this table where the data displayed in the tab fields is stored. Therefore, any of these tables can be used as a data source for a drop-down list.

However, the way data is loaded in the drop-down list is different according to two situations, as listed below:

1. Data source and drop-down list are in different user interfaces;
2. Data source and drop-down list are in the same UI.

(1) Data source and drop-down list are in different user interfaces

Let’s exemplify this item using the following example:

Assuming that in an application two interfaces were created, one for registering products (Interface A) and one for registering orders (Interface B). In the order interface (Interface B), a drop-down list type field was created, in order to allow the user to select a product when creating a new order. In this case, the data source comes from the products interface (Interface A). That is, the data source and the drop-down list belong to different interfaces.

*Whenever the data source and drop-down list are on different interfaces, all records from the data source will be loaded into the drop-down list.

In this example, if there are 100 records in the products table, the 100 records will be loaded in the drop-down list when it is active.

(2) Data source and dropdown are in the same UI

This is the case where the data source and drop-down list are in the same interface, but in different tabs.

Let’s use the interface (8D) as an example. This interface has 10 tabs and consequently 10 tables, one for each tab.
This interface has a tab called (D4/Root Cause (Ishikawa)), used to add the records associated with the root cause according to Ishikawa’s theory. Remembering that all records inserted in this tab are linked to the main tab, in this case the tab called (D0/Plan).

There is also another tab called (D4/Root Cause (5 Whys)), used to apply the 5 whys technique, aiming to find the root cause of the problem. On this tab there is a drop-down list field called (Cause to be eliminated). The data source for this drop-down list is the tab table (D4/Root Cause (Ishikawa)).

In this case, only tab table data (D4/Root Cause (Ishikawa)) associated with tab (D0/Plan) will be loaded in the drop-down list.

*Whenever the data source and the drop-down list are in the same interface, only the data associated with the main record, i.e. from the first tab, will be loaded in the drop-down list.

Example - Data source and dropdown are in the same UI