---
title: "About Data Entry and the ATO Advanced Transaction Object"
slug: "about-data-entry-and-advanced-transaction-object-ato"
description: "Explore version changes and advanced Data Entry features for analytical applications, enhancing user interaction and data management in Board. ATO lets users perform CRUD operations on Entities, manage Relationships, and control Cube write-back logic in analytic applications."
tags: ["Objects", "Developer", "Data Entry"]
updated: 2025-10-07T13:01:01Z
published: 2025-10-07T13:01:01Z
canonical: "help.board.com/about-data-entry-and-advanced-transaction-object-ato"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.board.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About Data Entry and Advanced Transaction Object (ATO)

> [!CAUTION]
> 💡This article contains **version changes.** Spot the light bulb icon? That means you’ll find helpful details about what’s changed across versions. Read more about version changes [here](/v14/docs/before-you-begin#How-to-navigate-this-Knowledge-Base).

Board provides a rich set of **Data Entry** features for the creation of analytical applications such as budgeting and planning models, and any simulation model and business application in general. Such models and applications usually require a high degree of interaction from end users, as they need to set assumptions, enter data and commentaries, perform calculations, and possibly review previous assumptions or modify existing values.

The [Data View Object](/v1/docs/the-data-view-object) and the [Flex Grid Object](/v14/docs/about-the-flex-grid-object) provide features to enter data in Cubes and manage Relationships (see [Data Entry on Cubes](/v14/docs/data-entry-on-cubes-cube-write-back), [Lock and Spread](/v14/docs/lock-and-spread), and [Managing Relationships with Data Entry](/v14/docs/managing-relationships-data-entry)).

**> [!CAUTION] > 💡 Version Changes**

In version 14.2.2 and earlier, Data Entry on a Flex Grid Object is not available.

### The Data View and the Flex Grid provide features that allow you to:

- enter data directly on Cubes (numeric data, text, files, and more)
- define validation rules in order to automatically accept or reject entered values
- define locking rules in order to block or allow data entry on cells based on another Block values
- assign or change the Relationship between members of two hierarchically related Entities

To provide the end user an even more controlled and guided environment, you can enable the ATO Management option on a Screen or Container. This option is located in the [Screen Properties panel](/v1/docs/design-and-play-mode#properties-panel) on the right side of the Screen editing page in Design Mode.

> [!WARNING]
> ### ATO management in particular allows you to:
> 
> - provide end users with the ability to manually create new Entity members and manage Relationships between Entities. ATO is the exact opposite of the Data Reader, which instead makes bulk and centralized changes. ATO is activated automatically when the Entity editor Object is added to the Screen and allows end users to execute CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) actions on Entities, Entity members, and Relationships.
> - control the write-back to a Cube with a Procedure. This allows you to run a Board procedure before or after saving data to a Cube, for example to calculate other values in different Cubes.

> [!NOTE]
> *You cannot enable ATO when a Screen contains a Pager Object.*

## Related

- [Data Entry on Cubes (Cube write-back)](/data-entry-on-cubes-cube-write-back.md)
- [The Logical Data Entry: Data Split & Splat](/the-logical-data-entry-data-split-splat.md)
- [Enable ATO Management](/enable-ato-management.md)
- [Entity Editor in ATO](/entity-editor-in-ato.md)
- [About the Advanced Transaction Object (ATO)](/about-the-advanced-transaction-object-ato.md)
- [Lock and Spread](/lock-and-spread.md)
- [Managing Relationships with Data Entry](/managing-relationships-data-entry.md)