Display flex fields in XPS

You can configure XPS to display some of the flex fields (on page 1) that you configured in N4. You can also map some flex fields with a defined list of values to user-validated fields instead. If this is what you want to do, continue with configuring user-validated fields (on page 1).

To display a flex field in XPS:

Note: Vessel Visit flex fields are automatically mapped to XPS once they're configured in N4. There is no need to update the settings.xml or SPARCS Settings.txt files. For other flex fields, following the procedure below.

  1. In the SPARCS settings.txt file, add the attribute associated with a flex field (on page 1) to the #ATTRIBUTE section.

For each flex field that you add to the SPARCS settings.txt file, you must specify:

For example, to add the USR3 attribute (for unitFlexString03), you must add the following line:

USR3   5   Y   Fragility    Fragile

  1. In the settings.xml file, add the XML tag associated with a flex field (on page 1) to define the maximum number of characters for each flex field.

For example, if you add the USR3 attribute (for unitFlexString03) to the SPARCS settings.txt file and specify the maximum number of characters as five, then you must add the following XML tag to the settings.xml file to define the maximum length for USR3 as five:

<customer:kCharsUser3>5</customer:kCharsUser3>

You do not have to define the maximum number of characters for the date flex fields, such as ufvFlexDate01.

Typically, Navis Professional Services personnel configure the settings.xml and SPARCS settings.txt files for your site.

  1. Restart XPS for the changes to take effect.

Restarting XPS requires that you stop operations. Carefully schedule the time to minimize disruptions.

After you have configured XPS to display a flex field, you can add the flex field as a column to a container list (on page 1) or a filter dialog box (on page 1) in XPS. When adding a column to a container list, the flex fields are located in the following submenus: