Aspect Concepts

This help topic serves as an introduction on how Aspect works behind the scenes. These concepts can help you understand how your data is stored and retrieved, and how the licensing model works.

First of all, your data in Aspect is stored in three ways:

Customer Database	Data specific to a customer such as inspections, equipment, thermal readings, and problems is stored in a customer database.
Global Database	Data that applies to all of your customers, such as global libraries for manufacturers and such are stored in the global database.
Asset Folder	External files such as images (thermal and daylight) and PDFs (for things like an Energized Work Permit) are stored in a special folder attached to the customer database called the asset folder.

Aspect is a single-user, single-instance application. It is very important that no more than one instance of Aspect access a specific customer and global database at one time. At very least, this could result in inconsistent data and at worst it could lead to unrecoverable database corruption.

In order to prevent data corruption, Aspect databases cannot be created or opened on network drives. Installed (fixed) drives and removable drives (such as USB drives) are supported.

When working with the data in Aspect, two very important concepts are the Active Site and Active Inspection. The active site and inspection determine exactly what set of data you're currently working with.

Because the customer database draws some information from the global database for things like equipment manufacturers, component types, technicians and so forth, it is possible for this data to become separated from each other. Therefore, Aspect uses Cached Global Library Items to ensure this data is always accessible in a customer database.

Finally, the topic on licensing explains how Aspect is licensed for use, when you need to have an internet connection and when you don't, and the essentials of how your subscription is renewed each month.