Information stored and processed in Tillypad XL Manager appears in the form of data grids. Depending on the purpose and properties of items, various data storage forms are used within the program, including: directories, settings directories, lists, document lists, logs, and reports.

Directories are used for entering, storing, displaying, editing, and deleting data from the system.

Directories contain the information entered by users. This information can then be edited and added to. Data from the directories of Tillypad XL Manager are used in other directories and lists of the program, by Tillypad XL POS, and for reporting.

When you first start working with Tillypad XL Manager, you need to populate directories with the information that you will need to operate the program.

If you delete data from a directory, these data will not be deleted permanently; instead, they will be marked as deleted and hidden from the data grid. You can restore these items from the Recycle bin.

Settings directories are a subvariety of directories. They are used to make connections between different directories of the program. Items from the settings directories are deleted permanently.

Lists are used to store the data that are accumulated during the course of Tillypad XL’s operation. Information can be added to the lists both manually and automatically. List items can be edited. Data from the lists are used in other lists, as well as for reporting.

A log is a special kind of list. Normally, logs are populated automatically. The primary functions of logs include the storage and display of Tillypad XL Manager operation results, as well as logging the activity of the enterprise. Additionally, you can edit logs manually.

Document lists are another form of data storage. Documents are used to record the operations that are performed. Users can create and edit documents. Documents can have specifications and statuses. The status determines how the document and its specification can be managed.

Reports provide a distinctive format for displaying data. Reports are documents that contain data about the results of your enterprise’s activities. Reports are used for displaying information in a convenient form so that you can view and analyse it. There are two types of reports: operational reports and configurable reports.

Operational reports allow you to receive current information about the activities of your enterprise. The appearance of and rules for creating an operational report are determined by the developer and cannot be edited by the user. The user can create an unlimited number of print layouts for each operational report.

Configurable reports allow the user to independently create and edit the rules for report generation. Configurable reports can be created both from scratch and based on the available reports. Some generic configurable reports are set up as system objects during program installation.

Print layouts are used to print out information from the reports. To customise the appearance of the document to be printed, you can edit its print layout design using the FastReport generator.

Data from lists, logs, documents, and reports are deleted permanently.

Example: In Tillypad XL Manager, data about Menu units of measurement are stored in directory form. This directory is populated by the user at the start of the program's operation and can be added to later if necessary, e.g. when the menu is changed or updated. Business days take the form of a list. The number of business days grows during the course of the life of a business; all data about the business days are logged, stored in the database and accumulated in the list. Fiscal registrations are represented as a log. Data are automatically added to this log after each payment fiscalisation. Stocktaking records appear as a document list. It contains the documents that were created when inventories were carried out on the company's stores.

The structure, windows, commands, menu, working methods, etc. of lists, logs, document lists and reports are similar to those of the directories (except for the deletion operation, which will be described in detail at a later stage). Further on in this chapter we will only describe directories, but everything mentioned will also be true for other types of data storage.