The Database Properties command displays information associated with the database file that is currently open (and whose name appears on the title bar of the dialog box). There are three tabs¨ General, Change History and Notes, each discussed in a separate section below.

On any tab, you may click the View button to see and print (or save to a file) the information contained on all three tabs.

 

General tab

This tab shows the number of records the database contains, the number of fields that exist on its records, the number of errors associated with the database records, the database size and the date it was last modified. The Fields that exist on the database are listed individually, with columns displaying the field Name, Type and Description.

 

Change History tab

This tab lists the modifications made to each field by imports, updates, grouping, writing individual results from a Valuation to the database and defining the field by expression or table. Also included are changes made to individual database records by editing them directly (i.e., changing a field value by manual input, such as when in the Data Editor), resolving duplicate records and finding duplicate key values. The Change History contains, for each change (row in the list), information in these columns:

• Date Modified, which is the date and time the change was made

• Tool (e.g., import data, delete records, spreadsheet edit)

• Description of the change

• User who made the change

• Fields that were created, modified or deleted

• # Records, that is, a count of the number of records affected by the change

You may sort the Change History by clicking the relevant column title; for example, to see all entries together for the field named Salary, click the Fields column.

For changes made to the database far enough in the past that ProVal did not store information about the tool used, the user who made the change and the number of affected records, the Change History will display blanks in the Tool and User columns and “0” for the number of records.

The Change History presents database changes that have the same Date Modified and Tool combined into one row. If the changes that were combined have different descriptions, then the text “<details suppressed>” is displayed, for that row, in the Description column. For example, whenever Spreadsheet Edit is the Tool used to make the changes represented by a row in the history, then “<details suppressed>” generally is displayed, because the row likely represents changes made to several database records (i.e., the differing descriptions are the different RecIDs) and/or several fields.

The Filter button is used to “narrow down” the number of rows shown in the list. You can Filter by (show only changes pertaining to):

1. date modified – enter, in the Date Range, the oldest date (that is, the earliest chronologically) and newest date (most recent) for which you wish changes listed;

2. Tools used to edit the data;

3. Users who changed the data;

4. Fields that were modified;

5. RecID(s) – list individual record identifiers, i.e., RecID numbers, separated by commas, or enter a range of RecID numbers, for example, “1-200”, to filter out changes except those made on records with values of 1, 2, 3, …, 198, 199 and 200 in the RecID field (typically the first 200 records, unless some records with the listed RecIDs have been deleted from the database).

To filter by Tools, Users and/or Fields, check the box(es) for the entries you wish to keep in the display. (Note for changes modified several years ago: the tool used to change the database might not be saved in the Change History, in which case you will see an unlabeled check box listed for Tools. Check this box to select those changes for display.)

A check mark on the Filter button indicates that at least one of the five criteria listed above was selected for filtering the Change History display.

The selected filters are saved by the ProVal Client and database for the duration of the current ProVal session, except if you are editing a database, have selected an individual database record and entered the Change History tab by right-clicking a database field contained on this record: in this case, ProVal selects this RecID as the filter, ignores any saved filters and saves no filters upon exit from the Database Properties command.

The Clear button on the Filter dialog box clears only the “use filter” check boxes on the left, not the actual filter selections. (For example, if you selected a particular field, clicking the Clear button removes the check mark for Fields but not the check mark next to the name of the field.)

For any selected row(s) in the Change History, click the Show Details button to see additional Change History information (not displayed in the row or rows selected). For example, if a change operated on ten records, click Show Details to see the RecIDs of the ten records. If a change operated on more than one field and the affected records are determined according to which field was changed, then you will see the details in tabular form; otherwise the information will be presented in a comma-separated list. For each selected Change History row, ProVal states the tool used, the date and time (of day) the change was made and the name of the user who made the change, followed by the details of the change, including number of fields and records impacted by the change.

If the Tool that was used to change the database records and their field values is the Spreadsheet Edit command, then the details displayed include an “identifier” drop-down list box (to the right of the Find button). This allows you to select a field to add to the display, besides RecID (which is already displayed), for example, (U.S.) social security number.

If the Tool that was used to create the database records and their field values is the Capital Market Simulation command’s Explicit Corporate Yield Curve simulator, then “CMS Export” is displayed in the Tool column and the Description will be either “Government yield curves” or “Corporate yield curves”, depending on the type of returns saved to the database. The Fields column will list the fields created or edited by the action taken. For more information, see the discussion of exporting yield curves produced by the explicit corporate yield curve simulator and Simulated Full Yield Curves.

For changes made to the database far enough in the past that ProVal did not store information about the tool used, the user who made the change and the number of affected records, the Change History details will display “<unknown tool>”, “<unknown>” as the user name and “0” as the number of RecIDs affected by the change.

If a Change History has more than about 50,000 entries, a Set parameter appears and only a partial subset of the history is displayed at one time. The subsets are created by gathering together all the changes for a particular date range into one Set. All the sets, and their date ranges, are presented for selection in the drop-down list box. Set 1, at the top of the list, contains the changes for the most recent date range (chronologically); the last set in the list contains the earliest changes to the database. The initial selection, when you click the Change History tab, is Set 1.

The Delete button accesses parameters to delete recorded actions on database fields. The Delete Change History parameter has two options:

1) For all changes made prior to and including a date that you specify in the text field (the most recent date for which you wish to delete changes) and

2) For all changes, to remove all entries in the Change History.

Removal from the Change History is permanent; there is no way to restore an entry to the history once you delete it. Note if you have selected an individual database record, or records, in the Data Editor and entered the Change History by right-clicking a database field contained on the record(s): deleting the Change History clears the Change History for all records, not just for the selected record(s) currently being edited.

 

Notes tab

You may maintain descriptive information for the database on this tab, adding to or modifying the details whenever you wish. Such notes are created automatically when a database is created using the Group Data utility or the Resolve Duplicates command.

If the open database is a simulated full yield curve database produced by ProVal’s Explicit Corporate Yield Curve type of Capital Market Simulation, the Notes tab will contain the heading “Capital Market Simulation Basis For Yield Curve Database Export” followed by the simulator’s parameter settings.