How to use the Pattrn Editor

Accessing the Pattrn Editor

In order to access the Pattrn Editor, open the PATTRN_Admin spreadsheet in your Google Drive.

If you have followed the process detailed in the Setting up Pattrn with Google Sheets section, you should have already copied the URL of the Pattrn Editor Script in the cell A2 of the PATTRN_Admin spreadsheet.

To access the Pattrn Editor as an Editor, open the link to be found in cell A4, under script_url_as_editor.

You can bookmark this URL for quicker access.

Once the URL is open in your browser, a login page will be displayed. Enter your Editor username and password. You can find – or create – your username and password in the PATTRN_Admin_Password spreadsheet (see Creation of usernames and passwords for Editors).

Note: The recommended browser to use the Pattrn Editor is Google Chrome.

Editing Tab

Main Table view

Once you are logged in as an Editor, the first tab that will be displayed by default is the Editing Tab.

At the centre of your screen is a table. This table mirrors the table in the PATTRN_Master spreadsheet.

Any edits to the data entered via the Pattrn Editor will be reflected on the PATTRN_Master spreadsheet, and vice versa.

The top part of the page will display:

• the title of your Pattrn app, as configured in the spreadsheet PATTRN_Admin
• the number of events currently in the PATTRN_Master dataset
• a Live Event Search field, to access specific events via keywords. Note: you will need to press Enter after typing the keywords for the search function to be launched.
• a “Refresh” button, which calls for a refresh of the entire table.

Create / Delete columns

In order to customise your data structure, you can create new columns in your dataset. Specifically, you can create:

• up to 5 new columns of numeric data
• up to 5 new columns of data tags
• up to 5 new columns of Boolean data (Yes/No)

To create a new column of data, click on the “Create” button in the top right corner of the Main Table view. Select the type of data the column will contain, and name the column. Note: you can only use lowercase characters, and _ (underscore) as a divider: no spaces, symbols or uppercase characters are allowed.

To delete a column of data, click on the “Delete” button in the top right corner of the Main Table view. Select the name of the column you want to delete, click Delete. Note: there is no going back once it is deleted, hence the two warning messages that require your OK.

Display of Events: by clusters, or all events

In the top left corner of the Main Table View, you will find a series of blue buttons, such as “1-500” or “All”.

In order to improve the responsiveness and performances of the Pattrn Editor, by default the Main Table View will only load the first 500 events of a dataset. Depending on the volume of your dataset, a series of blue buttons will be displayed, that enable you to breakdown you entire dataset into cluster of 500 events, such as “1-500”, “501-1000”, “1001-1500”, etc...

Click on “All” to load all your events at once in the Main Table View. Note that if you have a dataset of 2000+ events, and with each event containing large volumes of data, the Pattrn Editor may be slow to respond and could even crash, as it will have reached the limit of its processing capacity.

Adding or editing an event

To add an event to the dataset, click on the Add New Event button at the bottom left corner of the Main Table View.

To edit an existing event, double click the row of the event in the Main Table.

Both functions open the Event Editing interface.

Using the Event Editing interface will enable you to enter data about the events you are logging in the dataset of the Pattrn Platform in a user-friendly way, that will automatically populate the PATTRN_Master spreadsheet with data that is correctly formatted for the Pattrn app.

The Event Editing interface is designed to be self-explanatory. If you have questions about its functioning and how to enter data, please see Help with Pattrn.

Review of Contributions Tab

New contributions

NOTE: This function is still a experimental. Please do send us feedback about any issues you run into, or improvements you would suggest.

When Observers of your Pattrn app contribute new data through the dedicated link in the Pattrn Platform (see Submitting New Data and Edits), Editors can review the contributions through the Review of Contribution Tab in the Pattrn Editor.

As Editors log in, if there are new contributions, the Pattrn Editor will launch on the Review of Contributions Tab by default.

Select the contribution you would like to review and click “Review”.

Review of a new event contribution

If the contribution was submitted by an Observer as a new event, clicking on “review” will directly open the Editing Interface, with the data submitted by the Observer pre-loaded in the interface. Editors should carefully review this data. They can edit any field so as to correct any data after research and verification about the contributed event. Once reviewed and verified, the Editor can click on the “Save” button at the top of the page to include the contributed event in the main dataset of the Pattrn app.

Review of an edited event contribution

If the contribution was submitted by an Observer as an edited event, clicking on “Review” will open an interface that displays the edits suggested by the Observer to the data originally attached to an event in the dataset.

Editors can accept or reject each edit, by clicking on the corresponding button in a cursor with two positions. By default the Reject button is displayed. Click in the grey area at his right to move the cursor right and let the Accept button appear.

In order to help with the process of verification of the Edits proposed, Editors can also load the data originally attached to the edited event in a new window, by clicking on the blue link next to the Event ID. Note: this is for consultation purposes only.

Once the Editors have selected which Edits they accept and which one they reject, they can load the full data of the now edited event by clicking on the “Load” button in the top left. This step is for a final review of all the data attached to this specific event, merging contribute data and original data, before saving this edited event into the main dataset by clicking “Save”. Editors can also make new edits at this step.

The PATTRN_Audit spreadsheet

All contributions are logged in the PATTRN_Audit spreadsheet, located in your Google Drive.

In the event of a wrong manipulation during the review process (valuable edits discarded, review of contribution not saved, etc...), go to the PATTRN_Audit spreadsheet to consult a log of all changes to the PATTRN_Master spreadsheet, including changes suggested by Observers.

Contributions can be accessed in their original form in the PATTRN_Audit spreadsheet, and if needed, copied and pasted into the PATTRN_Master spreasheet (after review and confirmation).

The PATTRN_Audit spreadsheet is also where the contact details of contributing Observers can be accessed (if the contribution was not anonymous).

Collaboration among multiple Editors

Simultaneous work among multiple Editors

The Pattrn Editor can be accessed by multiple Editors at the same time, so as to enable collaborative work on the dame dataset by multiple Editors.

Note: The Pattrn Editor has been tested in conditions of up to five Editors working together simultaneously, without any noticeable issue or loss in performance.

Comments

The COMMENTS field at the bottom of the Event Editing Interface is useful to leave notes that won’t display on the Pattrn app.

Warning: Do not input any sensitive or personal data in the COMMENTS field! As it is contained in the PATTRN_Master spreadsheet, which is published online, Editors must assume that all data entered in COMMENTS is virtually public: although not displayed in the Pattrn app, it can be seen by expert users by looking at the data that is loaded by the Pattrn app through the browser’s Developer Tools.

Drafts

The Event Editing interfaces also enables to save an Event as a Draft, for situations in which all data about an event has not yet been entered. An Editor can then recover the draft, even when the draft was created by another Editor, and resume the data entry process on that draft.

To do so, from the main table view, click on “Add a new Event”, then click “Recover draft”. If you are another Editor has previously saved an Event as “draft”, you will be able to select the draft and load the data already inputted in the draft.

Once you’ve finished editing the Event, click “Save” to add the event to the main dataset.