Crew Manager - Attribute Basics

What is an Attribute?

An attribute consists of the attribute itself and the possible values it can reflect. In that way, attributes are like functions.
A good example of this is Crew Division. Division could be an attribute, but the actual value of “North Division” or “South Division”, as the case may be for a given crew, is the output of the attribute. So in that case, Division is a list of possible divisions that can be assigned to a given crew.

Attributes can be broken into two main types: pseudo attributes and custom attributes.

Pseudo-attributes are those that were built by ARCOS. While their calculation behavior cannot be modified, users with the right security can still modify how the badges and icons are displayed for these attributes.

Check out the list of Pseudo Attributes HERE.

Custom attributes are those that are built by a user within Crew Manager. This could be anything that is expedient, such as an attribute that counts other attributes to provide totals for reporting.

All attributes exist in either a Group, Crew, Member or Resource level, and often the attributes at the Member level are then pulled into the Crew level to report on the crew as a unit. The same principle applies to groups when analyzing more than one crew.

For example:

You could have a several crews with a certain amount of Linemen in them.
Lineman is a value of the Class attribute, which is assigned at the Member level.

At the Crew level, I could then count the Linemen using a new custom attribute and display that count at the crew level.

(For more information on use-cases for attributes, click HERE.)
The above custom attribute, LinemanCount is just one example of how Formulas can be used to manipulate data for new attributes.

There are 33 formulas available for use in Crew Manager. All formulas and their variables are cAsE sEnSiTiVe. 

When you are in Crew Manager, you can view all current formula information by clicking the Edit the attribute icon:

Then under Attribute Behavioral Properties, selecting the Formula-based Attribute checkbox (if it is not already checked and clicking the blue ?" icon:

Check out the list of Formulas, HERE.

What about those pervasive RA attributes?

There are specific pseudo attributes that feed information to and from Resource Assist. These attributes locked, read-only attributes are available for selection within RA when creating an attribute group. All of these attributes begin with “RA”

Example: RA_EVENT (Name of the Event that the crew is allocated to.)

Values and Display Settings

In addition to listing possible values in the Attribute Edit form, the way that the information presents when badged can also be customized. Reviewing our Class screenshot from earlier:

You can see the various options for customizing how an attribute looks.

Note that Order, Background Color, Border, Font Color, custom images, icons icon Color, and Badge text are all possible customization options that can be used depending on what Value the crew has for that attribute.

Example using Class:

Note the font color and background color selections for the above classes.
Using colors intelligently can really improve the visual clarity of the Crew Panel.