Thanks Doug. I'll dig into this to see if I can adapt my forms to use this idea.
--- John J. Reiser Senior Software Development Analyst Remedy Administrator/Developer Lockheed Martin - MS2 The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Pay close attention and be illuminated by its brilliance. - paraphrased by me ________________________________ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mueller, Doug Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:07 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Keeping track of Open forms. John, >From your message, I am guessing that what you are trying to accomplish is the following (note that I have simplified the situation to 2 forms just to get the concept across and then you can expand it to 3 or 5 or 50 as you need). You have 2 different forms. One for logging groceries and one for handling automotive maintenance scheduling. You have customers that call in and they may ask about either groceries or about auto maintenance. What you want is for your staff to have 0, 1, or 2 windows open (there may be others but of the windows related to this topic). They may have no window for either open. Or, they may have a grocery window open but no auto maintenance (or vice versa) or they may have both open. When, a new call comes in, what you want to happen is for the system to determine whether it is a grocery or auto maintenance issue and if it is grocery, if there is no grocery window open, open one and open the ticket in that window. If however there is already a grocery window open, then open the new ticket within the existing grocery window and don't open a new window. (we will ignore the case of whether you are working a grocery ticket in the grocery window when the new call comes in so that the new call will overlay the existing window.....) (we will also ignore the issue of the fact that you are not opening a NEW window in that window but are really resetting a window to the new value -- UNLESS what you do is to close the existing window of that type and open a new one in the correct mode or what you are doing is having a submit window of each type and you just fill it in and hit submit and the new one just prepares for a new submit and initializes the data to be ready for the next submit) Anyway, a technique to accomplish what this is talking about is the following: 1) For each type of window that you want to have one uniquely opened, create a global variable. 2) Whenever a window of that type is opened, assign $WINDOWID$ (or whatever the keyword that is the window identifier) to this global variable. This field will be cleared (set to $NULL$) On Close of this window. Now, you have a global variable that is available to anyone who wants that holds the handle of the widow so you can refer to that window. 3) Create a form that has EVERY global from EVERY window type on it that you will use as your landing pad from the outside. It will also have fields that are the ones that are to be passed from the outside. Define a format for serializing the data passed in to every type of window or define gobals to hold data or some way to get data passed between windows. 4) When a new call comes in and you determine the type of either groceries or auto maintenance, gather the data that is appropriate (if any) for that type and then call AR to open the form you created in #3 passing data and the type of the call. 5) The form will have workflow the runs on Loaded (because the data you are passing in needs to arrive) that will then take the type of window, check the appropriate global field. If it is NULL, there is no window of that type open and you can use an Open Window action to open it and pass the data. If it is NOT NULL, you have the window ID of the window that is open and you can send a signal to that window either passing the data you want passed or having it put into globals so that the window can pick it up from them (using them as registers). Each of the types of forms -- groceries and auto maintenance in this case -- would have active links firing on event that would prepare the screen, parse data from the data passed or get from the global registers into the appropriate fields and you are good to go. You have just accomplished either opening a window if not available or sending data to the existing window if it is available. 6) You have workflow at execution order 999 on the form in #3 that does a Close Window action so that the window for #3 never really actually opens. 7) Obviously, you just add more globals and more directions to pass the data if you later add on pool reservations and lunch ordering and 10 other divergent forms. Hopefully, this gives you a picture of a possibility if you wanted to pursue it for the type of situation you are encountering (assuming I interpreted your situation and what you want to accomplish correctly). Anyway, this is an example of how to achieve the type of interaction like this. I hope this is an interesting discussion of ways to use the features of the system at least and maybe gives some ideas. Doug Mueller ________________________________ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Reiser, John J Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:42 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Keeping track of Open forms. ** I thought about that but the customized forms are so different that a unified input process is not applicable, though we would like to work towards that type of solution. I'm not crazy about working a Midtier app through a view field in the WUT. Seems like the long way around to accomplish what should be simple. Hey BMC, Why can't the Target Location in an open window action work for the WUT as it does for Midtier? Current only opens the form in the same window if you use a browser. New works for Wut and the browser. --- John J. Reiser Senior Software Development Analyst Remedy Administrator/Developer Lockheed Martin - MS2 The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Pay close attention and be illuminated by its brilliance. - paraphrased by me ________________________________ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jason Miller Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 1:23 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Keeping track of Open forms. ** Would it be at all possible to create a single front end form and/or console that would push/pull from the correct Help Desk form based on some field selections? Do you have Mid-Tier? Another idea would be to create a DO form with a large view field and then you could load the URL to the correct Help Desk form in the view field based on some field(s) on the DO form. 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