There are many different types of interfaces used in TFM providing the easiest user interface possible. The following interfaces are described below:
| Required Field | Text Box | Pull-down Menu | Check Box | Button Group |
| Default Button | Date Field | Money Field | Gray Button Box | Table | Search Tables |
Many windows throughout TFM contain required fields. These fields are flagged with a red asterisk *. An error is reported if an attempt is made to save information to a TFM Database and a required field is empty.
Text boxes are used for entering data. Text boxes become enabled (receive focus) and ready to accept keyboard data when you either TAB into them or mouse-down inside of them. Any previously entered text is automatically selected to facilitate removing and entering new text.
Pull-down menus provide the user with a choice of selections to pick from. Typically, pull-down menus are populated from The TFM Database or from choices defined in Preferences. Depending on the number of choices in the list, some pull-down menus may become quite long and it becomes difficult to find the correct choice. Scrollbars make the process easier. However, it is still very difficult to navigate a list with hundreds or thousands of items. To facilitate locating an entry from a long list, a search capability is built into the pull-down menus. To activate, simply clear out the text in the pull-down menu text box, type in a sub-string that is contained in the item you want to locate, and hit the Enter key. There is a three step prioritized process that determines which item is located:
Pull-down menu matches are case sensitive and do not allow for duplicate entries. For cases 2 and 3 listed above where a complete match is not necessary, it is possible that more than one item in the list matches the sub-string criteria. In this situation, the list is scanned and successive matches are selected. For example, given the list:
If the search criteria entered is "Hall", based on 1 above, the pull-down menu automatically selects "Hall" since it is an exact match. If the search criteria entered is "Sma", based on 2 above, the pull-down menu automatically selects "Small" since it is the first match starting at the beginning of an item. If "Small" is not the match you want, hit the Enter key, and "Smart", the next match item that matches starting at the first character is located and selected. Processing would continue through the entire list, selecting items that match the beginning of an item. Eventually no more items match in this manner and "Dr. Smale" would be selected since, based on 3 above, "Sma" is located anywhere within the item.
If the search criteria was initially entered is "a", "Hall", "Small", "Dr. Smale",and "Smart" would be found in that order since each as an "a" as a sub-string. The uppercase "A" in "Arnold" would not match.
Using search criteria and entering sufficient characters to make the list manageable, large lists can easily be searched for appropriate items.
The text area in a pull-down menus is editable to enable searching, however, the text area may not be used to create new list items. For example, given the list above, if you typed "Ball", and hit the Enter key, since there is no correct match, an error is displayed. To create a new list item, the appropriate TFM methods must be utilized to create a new TFM Database entry.
Check boxes are used to allow the user to make multiple selections. Any number of the check boxes may be selected simultaneously.
Button Groups are similar to check boxes except that only one button may be selected. Selecting a second button deselects a button already selected.
Throughout TFM, to minimize the number of keystrokes that users must enter, default buttons are enabled. Hitting the Enter key will take the default action indicated by the button text.
Date and time fields are similar to text boxes however they require a specific format for user input. The format required for all date and time inputs in TFM is customizable. Refer to Preferences for information on date and time formats. When you begin to enter a date, the background color of the field turns to red. When you have entered enough date information to be a valid date, the color returns to a white background and the field is completed.
Money formatted fields are similar to text boxes however they are formatted in the following manner:
In various windows in TFM, grayed button boxes are used to display a summary of information. These boxes are not editable however they are selectable. When selected, they open an editor window where all fields can be modified.
In various windows throughout TFM, tables are utilized to summarize multiple items fetched from a TFM Database. Only a single row in a table can be selected at any one time. To select a row, the mouse is used.
In some situations, not all information is immediately viewable in a table. In the example above, the check number field in the first row is not completely visible because the column width of the table is too small. Whenever it is necessary to view a complete table item that has been truncated in this manner, the column width of the table can be temporarily increased. Note the vertical bar located in the header of the table between the Method and CheckNum labels. This bar can be dragged with the mouse horizontally to either increase or decrease the width of the column. In this case, dragging the bar left would successfully display the rest of the check number digits. All tables operate in a similar fashion. This feature allows the TFM application to make more information available to the user and lets them decide which portions to visualize.
The TFM database is composed of many different types of data organized internally in tables. Some examples of data are patients, ICD9 codes, and coverages. Within these internal tables, the number of entries that are stored can vary from a few items to thousands of entries. Often it is necessary to make a selection from all, or a set of the entries in a specific database. TFM Search Tables are used for this purpose. The tables are created in one of two ways. The first method is by entering search criteria to build the table. This method is available for listing patients and guarantors and is accessed through the TFM Tool Bar. The second method of generating a table does not allow entry of search criteria, but rather lists all the entries in the database. Tables are generated in this fashion directly from the TFM Configuration Menu.
Regardless of which method was used to generate a table, once created, the tables operate in an identical manner. The figure below illustrates a table listing a set of patients.
The screen displayed for TFM Search Tables contains three sections. The first is the table area itself. This is where the items are listed, one per row. If the number of items to list is larger than the area can display, a vertical scroll bar is provided. The second section contains a search criteria box and the third section, at the bottom of the screen, contains the work buttons.
Once the entries are listed in the table, there are two methods to make a selection. The first is to use the mouse and do a double-click on a row in the table. The second method is to select a row in the table with the mouse and a single-click and then choose the Select button. Note that the selected row is always highlighted.
After the items in the table have been listed, quite often the list is very long and it is useful to find a specific item quickly. This search criteria box allows the user to type in any partial string that they wish to locate in the table. When the Find button is selected, the typed string is searched against all the items in the list and the first one that contains the string is displayed at the top of the table. The table is scrolled appropriately. Additional selections of the Find button continue down through the table, finding and selecting successive matches. The "case" of the typed string and the item in the table must match exactly. A message is displayed when no more matches are found and the table will reset to the first item.
There are five buttons along the bottom of the screen. These buttons perform the following:
New
Delete
Re-Do
Close
Select
There are search tables available in TFM to display the following kinds of data: