Dictionaries

You can use this page to create a new dictionary item and to maintain existing dictionary items.

Never change or delete an existing dictionary item. Changes to a dictionary item affect everyone in your agency who uses that dictionary item. If you want to customize a dictionary item for your own use or for use by a particular group of people, copy the existing dictionary item, give it a new name, then make changes to the new item.

Exception to the Copy & Rename Rule:

If your agency uses dictionary items with Excel Integration, you must rename the Heading information in existing dictionary items to remove spaces. If you do not remove the spaces, Excel will create a separate column for each group of characters in the heading. For example, you should rename the heading CLIENT CODE to CLIENT.CODE to avoid having a CLIENT column and a CODE column appear in Excel. You can either change the heading in the existing dictionary item or copy the dictionary item and then change the heading in the copy.

How to access this page

  1. From the Sagitta Home Page, select Other.

  2. Click Maintenance > Miscellaneous > Dictionary Maintenance.

File Name field

Type (or search for and select) the name of the Dictionary file that contains the dictionary item you want to access.

Key field

Use this field to specify the name of the dictionary item you want to access. Be sure to enter the alpha name of the dictionary item from the Synonym Dictionary (as opposed to the numeric key from the Attribute Dictionary). For example, enter COV.D.LIMIT (not 10).

  • If you know the name of the dictionary item, type the name then press Tab.

  • If you are unsure of the name of the dictionary item, use the Lookup icon to search for and select the name.

The system retrieves the dictionary item from the database and fills the remaining fields (as applicable).

Type field

If you entered the alpha name in the Key field, the Type field pre-fills with Synonym, indicating that this is a Synonym Dictionary item.

Avoid working with Attribute (File) Dictionary items. Attribute Dictionaries are used by system programs.

Justification field

This field indicates the justification of the output data.

Multi-valued field

This field indicates whether or not this dictionary item is multi-valued (MV). Multi-valued items are items that can have more than one data value. For example, any field with a data grid can have more than one data value, as can database fields such as Producer, Servicer, Category Code, etc. When you select or output data from a multi-valued field, Report Builder looks at and displays all values unless you specifically request one of the values. For more information, see Multi-valued Items

Attribute No. field

This field shows the number of the attribute being described or, when using a T-Correlative, the number of the key to the file being translated to.

Length field

This field indicates the number of characters reserved for displaying the data across a report column.

The column width will be the greater of the number shown here or the number of characters in the Heading.

Alternate Display Description field

(Not Used)

C/D Attrs field

pre-fills with the file name. No not change this entry.

Heading and Sub Heading fields

The data you enter in the Heading field becomes the first line of text in the column heading, and the data you enter in the Sub Heading field becomes the second line.

By using these two fields in conjunction, you can create narrower headings that save space on your report. For example, instead of creating a wide, one-line heading of C.PRIME.PROD for a column that will display a 3-character code, you can create a shorter, two-line heading that takes up less width.

Agencies that use Excel Integration with Report Builder should make sure Headings do not include spaces.

Conversion field

Conversion codes alter the appearance of the data upon output. They are used with dates and numeric fields (such as dollar amounts).

Codes used in Numeric Conversions:

ML

Justify Left

MR

Justify Right

Can be used with these options:

n

Number of places after decimal

,

Include commas between groupings

$

Leading dollar sign

CR

Negative shows CR

DB

Positive shows DB

M

Negative shows - suffix

E

Negative enclosed in < >

 

Codes used in Date Conversions:

D

Day Month Year

11 Apr 2011

D2

Day Month 2-digit Year

11 Apr 11

D2/

MM/DD/YY

04/11/11

DY

Year

2011

D2Y

2-digit Year

11

DQ

Quarter

2

DD

Day of Month

11

DM

2-digit Month

04

DMA

Month (alpha)

APRIL

Correlatives field

Some dictionary items have one or more correlatives. A correlative points to information in another file or to specific information in the same file.

When entering more than one correlative, press Enter after each correlative so that each correlative appears on a separate line in the text box.

For more detailed information about correlatives, see Dictionary Overview.

Display as Text in Report Builder XML Output

Yes - Numeric fields display as Text fields. Allows any numeric field to retain leading zeros when used in a Report Builder statement that is exported using XML.

No – Numeric fields are displayed as numeric fields. Leading zeros are stripped from numeric fields. Example: Zip Code 02215 would display as 2215.