MasterFile’s unique Issue Cross-Table

Just what you need when issue outlines are insufficent

MasterFile’s unique “Issue/Topic cross-table” is designed specifically for situations where a set of issues applies to many entities. It eliminates the need to create and maintain duplicate sets of the issue outline for each of them.

Suppose the case involves many elevators all with the same issues. The issue/topic list can be imagined as a cross-table where every row constitutes an issue and every column the entity that it applies to. Here’s how it looks conceptually with defective part issues (the rows of the cross-table) applied to elevators at various locations (the columns).

Locations Defective Parts	Arcade Towers	Daily Chronical
Brakes	Documents Extracts Facts	Documents Extracts Facts
Cables	Documents Extracts Facts	Documents Extracts Facts

Each cell of the table represents documents, extracts and facts linked to a particular issue/location combination or intersection where, if the combination is relevant, there will be documents and facts. The cross-table eliminates having to duplicate and maintain the entire issue outline for every location — you simply add a new column if there is a new location or a new row if there is a new issue.

To create the the cross table, simply include an “[row]” in all the issue categories you wish to represent as rows in the cross-table and a “[col]” in the all the topic categories you wish to represent as columns in the cross-table when you create those keywords (you can modify them later as well). Note, that you are not limited to just one issue category, as in the example above; you can include any number of issue categories.

Once you’ve linked documents, extracts and facts to the relevant issues and locations, as usual, MasterFile’s X-Tab view automatically creates all the issue/location (row/col) combinations and categorizes the documents extracts and facts under each. Since the table format shown above has limited space to show information about each document, extract or fact and also because the table can get very large, the X-Tab view uses MasterFile’s familiar expandable category and view rows to let you see at a glance all the critical information about each document, extract or fact. And like all other issue/topic views, it’s live so always up to date.

Here are the top level row and column categories:

Here the two locations are expanded to show the general issues affecting each location:

If we further expand “Maintenance Issues” under “Arcade Towers” we see the specific issues of that category and the documents and facts related to them for the location Arcade Towers. That is, we are going down the column of the table.

And here’s the inverse. That is, documents and facts are first organized by “Defective Parts” (the x axis or rows of the cross-table) and then by locations (y axis or columns), i.e. we are going across the the columns of the cross-table. Under each location below, relevant documents, extracts and facts are then listed.