Virtual Layer Configuration
- Kim Stimpson
- Jo Cook (Deactivated)
Virtual Layers may only be used with My House and My Alerts. You may simply wish to add a link to a specific website to your My House page e.g. NHS Services or configure a General Alert in My Alerts.
If you wish to use this Virtual Layer to trigger a General Alert in My Alerts then this must be part of a Virtual Layer Group not a standard Layer Group.
In this example you would right click on the layer group say for Heath and Social Care and select to Add Virtual Layer. Then in the Row Settings at the bottom select the 
and add the information that you wished to be displayed including any html.
Layer Attributes
Display Name
If you do not want to display any name for this virtual layer then enter an underscore here.
You may need to enter more than one underscore if you already have a virtual layer with one underscore.
The Display Name must not start with a number and can only contain alphanumeric characters, underscore, hyphen or spaces. Maximum length 32 characters.
Layer Name
Enter a unique name for the virtual layer.
Custom output
Please see My House Layer Custom Output for details. This is only available for a My House virtual layer.
MyAlerts Rule
Please see My Alerts Layer Rules for details. Only available if My Alerts has been configured.
Lookup Datasource
If you wish to lookup information from a Datasource then select how you wish to
Select the Property radio button to lookup the Datasource by UPRN. Now select the Name for the DataShare entry for you require; in this case CTax_Banding. This shows all the information regarding council tax matching the UPRN of the selected address. E.g.
If you are selecting to create a Property based Virtual Layer you need to make sure that you have selected to create this under a normal Layer Group not a Virtual Layer Group in My House. Virtual Layer Groups are deprecated and the ability to create them will be removed in future releases of iShare.
Select the Row radio button if you wish to return all the rows in a datasource such as an RSS Feed. Select a the relevant Name for the Datasource you wish to use. Now you just need to format the information to be displayed by entering something like the following in the Row Settings.
<p><a href="##link##">##title##</a></p>
This will mean that for every row returned the link and title fields will be displayed.
Row Settings
If you have selected Row as the Lookup Datasource above then you will need to define one entry in the Row Settings to define how each record in the datasource is to be displayed. If you have selected None as the Lookup Datasource then you may enter as many rows as you like. For instance if you wish to display HTML links to NHS Services then you will need to add a row for each line of HTML or link you require e.g.
You can add a number of rows by using the green plus button, which may use the following variable fields. You may use the up and down arrows to move entries up and down or the 
to remove the selected row. You can also use Virtual Layer tags which will be replaced with the relevant information when the page is displayed. Below are some of the more commonly used tags:
##postcode## - this is replaced with the postcode for currently selected address.
##easting## - this is replaced with the easting coordinates for currently selected address.
##northing## - this is replaced with the northing coordinates for currently selected address.
The details entered in the above screenshot will be displayed as follows on the My House page:
