GI function

Created by Harry Lewis, Modified on Tue, 19 Dec 2023 at 06:45 PM by Harry Lewis

Applies to:

GI Module
ERP: Acumatica, CEGID, Haufe x360, JAMIS Prime, MYOB Advanced

Velixo recommends Microsoft 365 or Excel 2021 or higher for this feature. Experimentally, Excel 2010 or higher can be used. For prerequisites and an overview of Generic Inquiries, see Introduction to Generic Inquiries.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Description
Syntax
Parameters
Excel Online
Example
Configuration
Accommodating pre-defined filters in Acumatica
Filtering large generic inquiry datasets

Description

The GI function returns the contents of the specified generic inquiry.

Syntax

This is the syntax for this function:

=GI(Connection, Name, Filter, Select, IncludeHeader)

Parameters

This function has these Parameters:

Parameter	Required/Optional	Description
Connection	Required	The name of the connection, as specified in the Connection Manager
Name	Required	The name of the generic inquiry.
Filter	Optional	The conditions that determine which records should be selected from the inquiry. The recommended way to construct this parameter is by using the GIFILTER function. Otherwise, see Advanced Filtering in GI Functions.
Select	Optional	Comma-separated list of field names to be included in the resulting dataset. If this parameter is empty, all the columns from the generic inquiry will be returned (including columns that may not be shown in the ERP's user interface).
IncludeHeader	Optional	TRUE or FALSE, indicating if column headers should be included in the dataset.

Excel Online

Important: Loading large datasets with the GI() function is not performant in Excel Online due to the limitations of the Excel platform in the browser.  If your dataset contains more than approximately 100,000 records, we strongly recommend using a desktop version of Excel 365 for Windows or Mac OS.

Example

=GI("Demo", "VelixoReportsPro-Projects", A1, "ProjectCD, Description", FALSE)

Description: Returns the project code and the description of records returned by the VelixoReportsPro-Projects generic inquiry, which match the filter conditions specified in cell A1. FALSE as the last parameter specifies that no column headers should be returned.

Result:

Configuration

For configuration details, see Generic Inquiries Options.

Accommodating pre-defined filters in Acumatica

Acumatica Generic Inquiries can include pre-defined parameters which are used within Acumatica to filter the results of the inquiry:

e.g.,

Acumatica's OData interface (used by Velixo for querying the GI) does not support this type of filtering. To be compatible with your Velixo report, you would need to modify your GI by either:

removing the parameters or
making them optional by ensuring that the conditions in your GI will return the full dataset when the parameters are not specified.

Filtering large generic inquiry datasets

If you experience either long load times (especially with Velixo Classic) or a persistent #BUSY! message (using Velixo NX) for inquiries with a very large result set [e.g. GL transactions or invoices], make sure to always supply a GIFILTER filter when using the other GI-related functions with such inquiries.

In Velixo Classic, if you're using always load the entire Generic Inquiry to enable more advanced OData syntax, consider disabling it for larger inquiries and rewriting your filters so that they do not involve ODATA functions unsupported by Acumatica [such as toupper()]. Applying your filters on the server [before downloading the data] can significantly reduce the load time.