Collections

The organization's collections: lists of items that processes keep, look up and change while they run. A collection holds values by key: a customer's name by customer number, say, or a shipment by its reference. Processes read and write them with activities such as Get Collection Item and Set Collection Item. This page lists the collections, and adds, imports, exports and deletes them. A collection's items are on its own page: see Collection.

Each collection has:

• a Key Type: the type of the keys, such as String;
• a Value Type: the type of the values, which can be a type of your own, such as Shipment;
• Shared items, or not: whether every environment uses the same items, or each environment has its own. See Environments.

How to get there

• From the main menu: Spider › Collections.
• From the breadcrumbs of a collection's page: Collections.

Permission

To open the page you need Member or View collections for the whole organization, or View collections on this page's Permissions tab.

Some commands need more:

Command	Permission sets that allow it
Add collection, Import	Manage collections
Export	Export collections, Manage collections, or Export collection or Manage collection on the collection
Delete	Manage collections, or Manage collection on the collection
The Permissions tab	Manage collections, Manage items, View permissions or Manage permissions

Manage organization allows all of them. Member lets you see every collection and its items, but not add, change or delete anything. Commands you may not use are not shown; see Permissions.

Views

Overview

Every collection of the organization, by name. This is the tab the page opens on.

Column	Shows
Name	The collection's name. A collection whose items every environment shares has a Shared tag.
Key Type	The type of its keys.
Value Type	The type of its values.

Sort the list on any column by clicking its header.

The collections are the same in every environment, so the list doesn't follow the Environment selector in the header. Their items do: see Collection.

Double-click a collection, or select it and click Open, to see its items. When a colleague adds, changes or deletes a collection, the list shows it by itself.

Permissions

Who may do what with the organization's collections and their items. Pick a user or a group on the left, and set each permission set to Allow, Deny or Not Set:

• Collections: View collections, Change collections, Export collections and Manage collections.
• Items: View items, Change items and Manage items.

A permission set given here holds for every collection and all of its items. To give one for a single collection, use the Permissions tab of its page. See Permissions.

Commands

Tab	Group	Command	What it does	Disabled when
Home, List	New	Add collection	Adds a collection: see Add Collection.
Home, List	Open	Open	Opens the selected collection's page.	Nothing is selected.
List	Open	Open in new tab	Opens it in a new browser tab.	Nothing is selected.
Home, List	Manage	Delete	Deletes the selected collection and its items, after asking.	Nothing is selected, or you may not delete this one.
List	Data	Import	Adds a collection from an exported file: see Import collection.
List	Data	Export	Downloads the selected collection with its items: see Export.	Nothing is selected, you may not export this one, or the collection keeps its items per environment while the header shows All environments (Select a single environment: this collection keeps its items per environment.).
Home, List	View	Refresh	Reads the list again.
Home, Permissions	Principals	Add group or user, Remove	Adds a user or group to the Permissions tab, or removes every permission the selected one has here. Permissions only.	Remove: no user or group is selected.
Home	Share	Copy link	Copies the link to the selected collection, or to this page.

Drawers and dialogs

Add Collection

• Name: the name processes and people know the collection by.
• Key Type: the type of the keys. It offers the built-in types (String, Integer, Decimal, Boolean, DateTime, Date, Time) and the organization's simple types.
• Value Type: the type of the values. It offers the same, and the organization's complex types as well, such as Shipment.
• Shared items: When on, the collection has one set of items that every environment uses, and new items go to production. When off, each environment has its own items.
• Description.

Click Add once the collection has a name and both types. The key and value types can't be changed afterwards.

Change Collection

Properties, on the Collection tab of a collection's page, opens the same drawer, titled Change Collection, with the types shown but not changeable. You can change the Name, the Description and Shared items:

• Turning sharing on makes production's items the shared ones. The items the other environments hold stay, unused, as leftover items, so you can still change or delete them: see Leftover items.
• Turning it off gives each environment its own items again, and the leftover items are used once more.

Export

Export downloads the collection as <name>.collection.json: its name, types, description and sharing, with the items of the environment selected in the header. A shared collection takes its shared items, whatever the header shows. A collection that keeps its items per environment can't be exported while the header shows All environments: pick one environment first.

The file is meant for Import, in this organization or another. It records the organization and environment it came from.

Import collection

Import adds a new collection from an exported file:

1. Pick a file (.collection.json). The dialog shows where it came from (Source), when it was Exported, the collection's Name, Key Type and Value Type, the number of Items, and the environment the items go to: Import into environment.
2. Fill in the Name of the new collection. It starts as the name in the file, and must not be the name of a collection the organization has: A collection with this name already exists.
3. Choose the Technical keys: Keep the keys from the file, or Generate new keys. The technical keys identify the collection and its items; the item-keys are always kept. When the organization already has a collection with the file's key, Spider generates new ones.
4. Click Import.

The items go to the environment selected in the header, or are shared, as the file's collection was. A collection that keeps its items per environment can't be imported while the header shows All environments.

The dialog shows its progress as it goes: the Total, and how many items were Added and Failed, with the reason for each failure. When the collection itself can't be created, the dialog says why. When it is done, Spider opens the new collection's page behind the dialog, and Import becomes Close.

Cancel during the import stops it after the item it is on: The import was stopped before all items were processed. What it imported so far stays.

Delete Collection

Are you sure you want to delete this collection? Click Yes to delete it, or No. Its items go with it, in every environment.

Related chapters

• Collection: a collection's items.
• Types: the types a collection's keys and values can have.
• Environments
• Lists and The ribbon