Learn Iceberg

Getting Started

This Getting Started guide will quickly show you how to build, manage and configure your own applications without a line of code.

While Iceberg applications are intuitive enough to be used without any tuition, this guide will serve to teach you how you can design and create these application for yourself.

Once you're up and running please use the full User Guide to get detailed instructions and How To..'s to get more detail.

 

 

Intuitive Interface

An Iceberg applications interface is totally intuative with familar objects such as tabs, views, forms and dashboards. Customizing applications is just as easy to understand and this guide will show you the basics of how to make the most of the powerful tools at your command.

Applications Your Way

Wether you build your own application from scratch or customize an existing one to your needs Iceberg is built to work your way. The objects that make sense to your business and the exact right information displayed to the right people.

Each application is made of Business Objects, User Interface and Workflow.

In simple terms Business Objects are words in the language of your business. "Leads", "Opportunities", "Clients", "Projects" etc are all good examples of Business Objects. Each Business Object has both a Form and a Tab. So the Leads Tab would list all of your leads by value and the lead form would show all the information on your lead in fields. If you are familiar with Databases then a Business Object is like a table and a Field is a column, and if you're not dont worry; you just tell Iceberg what you want and it does all the hard work for you.

 

Your Interface

Each Iceberg application is made of interface elements that make up the funcitonality and what the user sees like building blocks. Like building a house you can build anything you need by using differnt combinations of blocks.

Views

In Iceberg a View is a list of items that a user can search, browse and click on to look at or edit.

Views can be managed by users using the simple View Options menu on every View

Clicking on any view in the list displays that view on the page

Users can use this menu to edit views, create new views and export data straight to excel or print it.

More info.... 

Connecting Your Objects

Like in business everything in Iceberg is connected. Each object can be associated with many other objects.

So for example when you make a phone call it is linked to the lead that you phoned

Iceberg shows these relationships using SELECT LIST FIELDS and RELATED LISTS.

In short a SELECT LIST FIELD is a searchable dropdown list of items you can place on a form. Once you have added this field to that form Iceberg automatically creates a real connection between the two objects and make a RELATED LIST allowing you to easily access information based on that connection.

A related list is just the same as a view and you can even select columns for it like on a view.

More info... 

Dashboard

These days its more important than ever to be able to access the right data when you need it as simple and quickly as possible. Dashboards make this not just possible, but easy. A dashboard is like a configurable dynamic notice board you can create with all the important information for the right people organized however you want. 

You can use any objects you like on a dashboard and move them around until you're happy with them. Once your dashboard is made you can control who in your organization can see them using Roles 

Calendar

Just like in the real world Calendars are at the heart of project management. With Iceberg you can create your own calendars and decide which of your Business Objects should be on a calendar.

For example..Appointments should display on a calendar but Leads usually should not.

Calendars can be used for scheduling, organization and even just to give managers an overall view of whats going on in an organization.

To get started with Calendars just make sure you have at least one BUSINESS OBJECT{link to calendar section of business objects} is set to display on a calendar then add a calendar to a dashboard.

Go here for more information on using calendars in your applications

Your Process

The best businesses are a mixture of great people and great process. In Iceberg PROCESS is the steps people take behind the scenes and the decisions made by people and software on a daily basis.

You can use process to choose manage your sales process from when a lead comes in as an email to when closing the deal and even following up with the client after time. You can control all of this using process. With Iceberg processes you can save time and money by automating and managing what is already happening in your business and even improve your process now you have this powerful tool.

The whole point of process is to free awesome people to do what they're great at.
Click here for more informaiton...

Applications in minutes

By writing out what your business needs you can literally build a new application in Minutes using Iceberg.

One "Iceberg" can run as many applications as you need and they are all totally integrated. Objects can seemlessly connect to and work with objects from other applications.

Manage and create applications

To make a new application just:

1. Go to the applications TAB
   1. 
2. Then click
   
   1. 
      
3. Enter a Name
4. Set Status to active
   
5. Click   to  make your  new Application.
   

Easily add all your business objcts

Once you have an application you simply  list all of the "Business Objects" your application needs then click save.

Congratulations you've now made your first application and created a database.

Please note that when you make and configure business objects in Iceberg it automatically generates a real table in your Iceberg database that you or your colleagues can work and integrate with.

Customize your Business Objects

Click the  beside a business object to configure it.

On the Edit Business Object form you can set the image, permissions and other advanced settings.

Customize the form

To customize the form click  link

To save your time for more important things Iceberg automatically creates commonly used fields on new forms for you.

To remove items from your form drag them into "Available items"

To edit Fields just double-click them.
More info on customizing forms...

Add your own fields

To add your own custom fields to a form just click and select the type of field you want from the list.

Click here to lean about the different fields and how to use them...

Learning Iceberg/3 Building The Interface/Creating Forms/FieldsWhen you are done drag your field from Available Items onto the form and click

Create relationships between objects

To create a relationship between two objects:

1. Go to the object you want to link to another and click
   
2. Select Select List as the type of field you want
   1. 
3. Then choose the object you want to make the connection to from the Populate list with dropdown 
4. Once you're done you will now have a searchable list and a "one to many" connection between your two objects.
5. As mentioned above you can connect any two objects in any active Iceberg applications. 

Browse and search using views

Views in Iceberg let you access and control your data in lists that can be easily managed, manipulated and searched.

All users can create and maniuplate views and your views can be made public to share or kept private just for yourself.

Instant view creation

When you make a new business object Iceberg automatically generates 3 new views to help you get started.

• My Items - Shows only items that belong to the user logged in or a role that the user is a member of
  
• All Items - Shows all items
  
• Search Items - Allows the user to search by name, description and owner
  

Choose the information to show

1. By default Iceberg shows all the default fields . To configure the columns shown on a view just click View options > Customize this view
2. Click the edit arrow to the right of a views name to access the View Options Panel
   
3. 
4. Click 2. Choosing The Columns
   1. 
      
      
5. This will take you to the Choose Columns form
   1. 
      
6. Use the + and - to add and remove fields from the view then click  and then  so save your changes.

Controlling Access

When you create a view you can set its access level to public or private

See above edit view screenshot...

Private means that only the owner can access the view

If set to public then the user is prompted for a list of roles that can access the view, every user that is a member of the selected role will now see the view in their "view list"

 

Add searching and filters

1. To add filters to a view click on 3. Applying The Filters link in the edit view popup window.
2. There are two types of filters:
   1. Static Filters display information based on set parameters and can be set simply by putting a value in the last field.
   2. Dynamic Filters become search fields and are created by clicking  on a particular filter.
      1. You will now be prompted to [enter variable name].
      2. When setting these variables it is important that the variable is enclosed in the box "[]" brackets shown above or the search will not work.
3. The Edit Filters page
   
4. 
   
5. When you have set your filters click  to save you changes and load the view.
6. The page will now reload showing the user the view 
7. 
   
8. You can now see that Iceberg has created two search parameters on the view and added buttons for "search" and "clear search"
   1. You can see from the results the search results are showing only "Closed" records
   2. Because the "Owner" field is a "Select List" the field has Autocomplete enabled
   3. This search will be stored for this user even if they leave the TAB and return.
      
      1. To see all items the user must click Clear Search
         

 

 

Add behaviour and workflow

Congratulations, now you have your objects and user interface you are ready to add some intelligence to your application. Processes are the "brain" of Iceberg in that they  make decisions and can automatically perform and control actions.

Every time you build a process you are teaching Iceberg about how your business works and even.. how you want it to work!

What is a process flow?

1. An example process for New Hires
2. Click the image to view in full detail
   
3. 

If you are familiar with microsoft visio or "flowcharts" in general then the Process Designer will look very familiar to you as it was designed to be as close as possible to the flow chart planning process. The key to Icebergs power is once you're done planning an application, you're done building it!

If you are not familiar with flowcharts fear not, the simple objects used in the flow are designed speficially to be completely intutive and our "process flow objects" guide will give you all the information and useful how to's you need.

In simple terms a process in Iceberg is started and performs action steps following a path containing actions and decisions until it reaches the end. Both actions and decisions in the process are either carried out by a person or by Iceberg automatically. 

Starting a Process:

Processes can be started lots of ways: 

On a click

When a user clicks on a button displayed on a form. To create one of these processes all you have to do is add a field of type "button" to a form and Iceberg will automatically generate a new process with the same name as the button for you and connect them up. Then you just go into the process designer select the process from the list and start editing.

When a user clicks the button Iceberg will run the process. Nice and simple.

On an Event

An event is when a Business Object is created or changed. This can be a when a user makes a change, when a new email comes in or even when a web service or a process makes a change to an object.

At certain times

You can run whenever you want as often as you want with as many rules as you want. Like send a newsletter every month on the 28th at 10am but not if its a bank holiday or around christmas or chinese newyear and if so send it after the holidays are over.

with scheduling and business calendars there are no limits to the power of scheduling

When called by a web service

Every process you make in Iceberg can be called by a web service. They have inputs and outputs so all you have to do is call them with the right permisssions from your own code and the process fires then returns you values, that simple. This makes controlling Iceberg apps from other existing or new apps easy, flexible and secure.

The process designer

The process designer allows you to drag and drop blocks including your own business objects straight into a flow that Iceberg then treats like code. So you can now make powerful applications without writing a line of code.

 

Finally all you have to do is tell the computer what you want and it will handle the rest.

Making a process

To make a basic process just click the new process button. to make a process that is triggered by an event just drill down into the business object that you want and then select the new group that event

Security and permissions

Icebergs security and permissions system gives you enterprise level control YOUR objects AND you can make them dynamic using workflow.

So for example you can control:

• who is a member of a project
• if they are a client, project manager (or anything else)
• what messages or leads or anything they can see on this project
• how those items look to this user
• what the user can do when he looks at the item
• and even change the access on an item in real time as it progresses through the workflow.
  More info....
  

Groups

A group is a collection of users and controls access to specific items in the application. So if I add Dave to the "asia pac sales team" group then he can access all the leads that belong to members of that group.
More info...

Roles

Roles control many different things within Iceberg and can be used for very simple to very complicated permission sets. Roles are used to control access to functions instead of individual objects. So the "sales" role would grant access to the sales tab and let the user run processes and access dashboards associated with sales. A role can also act as a queue, by assigning an item to a role each member automatically sees that object in his "my items" inbox and is granted ownership rights to it.
More info...

Access Control Lists

With an Access Control List you can take all of the permissions that you normally set on one object and wrap them up into a reusable list. With these lists you can reuse and dynamically manipulate complex permission sets. 

More info... 

Profiles

Profiles allow you to add user's to an object as members with a specific job to do. So for example adding a user as a client to a project will give them access to the messages area but not to financial information.

More info...

Connect

Not only can you now make powerful applications faster and more easily than ever before but you can connect them to rest the world. You can use email and Web services to quickly and easily integrate your applications with the Internet and other people without any technical knowledge. If you have technical knowledge and can write your own Web services then it's even more powerful and you'll be able to extend iceberg to do anything you can imagine while still saving 90% of your development time. 

Email

Iceberg has built in deep support for e-mail functionality including attachments (multipage fax attachments, image attachments and files).

More info...

Receive Emails

Using settings you can configure on the Email Accounts Tab Iceberg can poll any pop3 email address every 10 seconds and download email. Each new email fires the New Email Event process. For example: you can use this to  generate and assign a new lead for each email that comes into to Sales@yourcompany.com

Emails

Iceberg can also send e-mails.  To send an e-mail just add a Send e-mail object a process and use variables (like mailmerge) to add dynamic content.

Click here for more info on the send email Process Flow object

 

 

Please explore the rest of the Iceberg User Guide.

2.    How To...

3.    Building the Interface

4.    Building Workflow

5.    Administration

6.    Security and Permissions

7.    Using Applications

8.    Using Web Services