SBN Fundamentals & Navigation

This module is for every SBN user, whatever their role: logging on, finding any program, and making the workspace your own. Searching for installations is the Searching module; the full options reference is the SBN Overview reference.

How the module progresses

1. Log on with your own user and read the Main Menu, so every setting you make from here on is yours.
2. Open any program three ways, and learn how SBN names its screens.
3. Build a personal menu holding the programs you use every day.
4. Set your options — language, layout, grids — and learn which settings follow your logon and which stay with the workstation.

1. Log on and read the Main Menu

Task: log on with your own training user and find your way around the menu tree.

Your user is your workspace. Your custom menu and the language SBN greets you in are stored on your user, not the workstation — they follow your logon to any desk on the floor. Screen options such as layout and grids belong to the workstation you set them on.

Every screen has a number. The Main Menu is a tree of programs, and each program carries a number that shows in its screen title. The number is how SBN names every screen: Service/Data Entry is #559, Monitoring is #537.

Steps:

1. Log on with your TRAINxx user.
2. Expand and collapse the Main Menu branches to see how the tree is grouped.
3. Open Service/Data Entry (#559) from the tree and read its number in the screen title.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): log on with your own TRAINxx user, expand the menu to Service/Data Entry, open it, and read #559 in the title.

Guided practice: find Monitoring (#537) in the tree and name the branch it lives under — without opening it yet.

Independent practice: pick any program in the tree you have not opened, open it, and state its program number from the title.

2. Open any program three ways

Task: open a program by tree, by name, and by number — and know which is fastest.

Three routes, one destination. The menu tree is for browsing. Locate Item searches programs by name when you know what it's called but not where it lives. GoTo jumps straight to a program number — the fast path once you know the numbers.

Steps:

1. Open a program from the menu tree.
2. Open the same program with Locate Item — type part of its name.
3. Open a program with GoTo — type its number.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): open #559 all three ways in turn: from the tree, close it; via Locate Item on "Service", close it; via GoTo on 559.

Guided practice: open Monitoring with GoTo — 537 — and leave both programs open.

Independent practice: take the program you found in section 1's independent practice, close it, and reopen it by its number from memory.

3. Build your personal menu

Task: create a custom menu holding your daily programs, name it, and load it.

The tree carries every program on the system; a custom menu carries yours. A custom menu is created once, named, and loaded — after that it is your working view.

Steps:

1. Create a new custom menu.
2. Add Service/Data Entry (#559) and Monitoring (#537).
3. Name it TRAINxx menu and load it.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): build TRAINxx menu containing #559 and #537, and load it.

Guided practice: add a third program — find one with Locate Item and bring it into the menu.

Independent practice: remove the third program again and reload the menu, so it holds exactly your two daily programs.

4. Make your options yours — and know where they live

Task: switch the UI between French and English, set your Layout and Grid options, and show which settings come back after a log-off and which stay with the workstation.

Two kinds of setting. SBN runs in French or English per user: the language on your user record is applied every time you log on, on any workstation, and your administrator sets it. Regional in user options switches the UI language on the spot and becomes this workstation's default — the next logon applies the user's own language again. Layout and Grids control how screens and lists present themselves; grid lines and extended focus are the two settings to standardise on, and they are stored on the workstation. The full field-by-field reference is on the SBN Overview reference.

Steps:

1. Open user options, Regional — switch the UI language to French.
2. Open #559 and see it translated; switch back to English the same way.
3. Layout and Grids — turn on grid lines and extended focus.
4. Log off, then log back on: your custom menu is still there and you are greeted in the language set on your user; grid lines and extended focus are still on because you are on the same workstation.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): switch your UI to French, open #559 translated, and switch back to English.

Guided practice: set grid lines and extended focus, and check the effect on any open list.

Independent practice: log off and back on, and state for each of these where it is stored — your custom menu, the language you were greeted in, your grid settings — and what you would see logging on at a colleague's desk.

5. Quick reference

Three ways to open a program: menu tree (browse) · Locate Item (by name) · GoTo (by number).

Where your setup lives: custom menus and the language on your user record follow your logon; Regional (the on-the-spot language switch), Layout and Grids stay with the workstation.