User Favourites

The concept of 'Favourites'

Many users of the IFIS website will find that they have Pre-Flight Briefing requests and/or Flight Planning requests which don't change that much. To save users having to fill forms in from scratch each time, a 'Favourites' facility has been implemented for a number of input forms.

This facility enables users to SAVE what has been filled in on a form. Then, sometime in the future when they want to make the same (or a similar) request, they can LOAD the saved data back into a blank form.

It is also possible to perform the following actions on an existing favourite:

Details of how to perform these actions are given below...

Each IFIS user is allowed to save up to 150 favourites for each of the forms listed above. Each favourite is identified by a unique name allocated by the user.

Saving a Favourite

On the forms which support Favourites, there is an area immediately above the SUBMIT button which contains:

Initially the "Save Favourite" drop-down list will only contain the default entry "Create a New Favourite". Once you have saved one or more Favourites, the drop-down list will contain this default entry and the names of all your saved favourites.

Note: In general, a 'SAVE' will cause all of the fields on a form to be saved. The only exception is the SARTIME field on the VFR Flight Plan Activation form. This field is never saved as part of a favourite. This is to ensure that the user always has to input a SARTIME when activating a VFR Flight Plan.

Creating a New Favourite

If you have filled in a form (completely or partially), and want to save the input data as a new favourite, do the following:

  1. Select the "Create a New Favourite" option from the drop-down list.
  2. Enter a name for your new favourite in the 'Name' input box.
  3. Click on the 'SAVE' button.

The new favourite will be saved, providing that you have not exceeded the maximum-number-of-favourites limit that has been set (currently set at 150 favourites per user per form).

Replacing the contents of an existing Favourite

If you would like to change the contents of an existing favourite, do the following:

  1. Set up the input data that you want to save (either by inputting new data, or editing data which you have loaded from an existing Favourite).
  2. Select the name of the Favourite from the 'Save Favourite' drop-down list. (This will automatically put the selected name into the 'Name' input box as the default name value).
  3. In the case where you have reached the limit for the number of favourites that you can have and are having to replace an old favourite, you might like to change the name of the favourite by editing the contents of the 'Name' box. In this case both the name and the contents of the existing favourite will be replaced.
  4. Click on the 'SAVE' button.

Renaming a Favourite

If, for whatever reason, you would like to rename an existing favourite (with or without changing its contents), do the following:

  1. Load the favourite into the form.
  2. Edit the contents of the form if you want to change the content of the Favourite (this is optional).
  3. Change the text in the Name box to the new name you wish to use. (The name of the Favourite that you have loaded will already be in the 'Save Favourite' and 'Name' boxes).
  4. Click on the 'SAVE' button.

Loading a Favourite

Once a user has saved at least one favourite for a particular form, the area immediately under the form's title will contain:

The drop-down list will contain the names of all the favourites that the user has saved for the form currently displayed on the screen.

To load the contents of a favourite into a form, all the user has to do is:

  1. Select the name of the favourite from the 'Load Favourite' drop-down list.
  2. Click on the 'LOAD' button.

Once the contents of the selected Favourite have been loaded into the form, the user still has the option of editing the contents of the form before submitting the request.

Deleting a Favourite

Favourites which are no longer required can be deleted. It is recommended that this is done to prevent the length of the drop-down lists from getting longer than they need to be.

On the forms which support Favourites, there is an area immediately above the SUBMIT button which contains:

The drop-down list will contain the names of all the favourites that the user has saved for the form currently displayed on the screen.

To delete a favourite, all the user has to do is:

  1. Select the name of the favourite from the 'Save Favourite' drop-down list.
  2. Click on the 'DELETE' button. A confirmation window will be displayed.
  3. Click on the 'OK' button if you are sure that you want to delete the named favaourite, or click on the 'Cancel' button if you don't want to delete the favourite.

General

Submitting a request, after saving or loading a Favourite

Pressing the 'SAVE' or 'LOAD' buttons will only result in a Favourite being Saved or Loaded. If you want to submit a request (Pre-flight briefing or Flight Plan input/activation), you still need to click on the 'SUBMIT' button.

Resetting the contents of a form after clicking on the SAVE or LOAD buttons

Clicking on the 'RESET' button resets the contents of a Form to what they were when the form was last loaded onto your screen. Clicking on the 'SAVE' or 'LOAD' buttons results in the form being reloaded. This means that clicking on the 'RESET' button at any stage after having saved or loaded the contents of a form will result in the contents of the form being reset to the values immediately after the last 'SAVE' or 'LOAD' was performed. This means that all changes to the content of the form performed after the last LOAD or SAVE will be undone but the contents of the form will not be cleared.

The only way to completely clear the contents of a form after you have clicked on 'LOAD' or 'SAVE', is to click on 'CANCEL'. This will return you to the menu, where you will need to repeat your form selection.