Hi,
I am designing a ASP.NET 2.0 front end for an activity based costing model
and am interested in getting some general guidance on what design route to
take. I can work out the specifics but need to make sure I am going down the
right track. In particular I am unsure whether a gridview will do the job
required.
Quick intro of the activity based costing model: it splits costs first
across activities then across products, e.g.:
$1,000,000 * 40% for Brokerage Activity = $400,000
$400,000 * 20% for Fixed Income Product = $80,000
So $80,000 of the $1,000,000 gets allocated to Brokerage, Fixed Income.
The data is simply sets of percentages adding up to 100%: a list of
activities adding up to 100% and then a list of products FOR EACH ACTIVITY
adding up to 100% each. I have one table for activity splits and one for
product splits.
The front end for a particular cost area would need to look something like
the layout below:
Step 1 – Activity
Activity
1 4 5
8 13 14 Total
Ratio 0.4 0.1 0.1
0.2 0.1 0.1 1.0
Step 2 – Product
Activity
ProductID Product Name 1 4 5 8
13 14
1 Product 1 Name 0.5 0.6
5 Product 5 Name 0.1 1.0
0.9
6 Product 6 Name 0.6
0.1
17 Product 17 Name 0.1 0.4 0.2
22 Product 22 Name 0.3
0.8
39 Product 39 Name 0.2
0.2
Total 1.0 1.0 1.0
1.0 1.0 1.0
The activities in the top grid would match the activities in the bottom grid.
Key elements here are that:
1) The list of activities is dynamic based on the selected cost area. Out
of 40 activities only a few might have values recorded for that cost area.
Products are dynamic too but not the same issue when product is on the rows
rather than the columns.
2) ALL adjustments need to be made to these grids before the adjustments are
loaded to the database; when this load attempt does occur they should only
upload IF the values all add to 100%.
3) Changes to the database would need to be inserts rather than updates (so
no overwrites).
4) Need to display the activity names on the column headers rather than
their Ids but need to have the Ids for communication with the database.
Thoughts:
1) I’ll either need to use a dynamic template (which I’m not sure how to do
yet) or I’ll have to include all activities and then programmaticall y hide
columns that are full of nulls. Not sure which is the better bet, the second
seems like a faster solution.
2) How can I have users editing ALL values in the 2nd grid at once? (with a
save button that saves all the values at once) Essentially I need the grid
to treat all values in the grid as a record rather than treating each row as
a record. Can a gridview do this or do I need to create a custom control? I
assume also I’ll need to use an objectdatasourc e rather than a sqldatasource?
3) Not sure how to get the edit mode of a gridview to handle an insert
rather than an update.
Appreciate any thoughts on the direction I should take.
TIA,
Rob
