Just to be 100% clear.
7.1 introduced Service as an action in AL's and an execute on condition in Filters 7.5 introduced Service as an action in Filters From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 8:24 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The Service Action in an Active Link ** Actually the Service action is there in Filters as well in 7.1 (if it wasn't then the Active Link action of Service would be useless). Think of Service as a combination of Push action and Window Open action (Window Open because you map fields to be returned as part of the action like a Dialog). Here is how I have used the Service action on my system. On a Display Only form I have a button for a user to populate some data. The button fires an Active Link Service action with Input values mapped to "push" to the filter and Output values mapped to hold the results. One of the values being "pushed" is a flag/code so any service Filters on the form can know if it applies to them. I have a (could be more than 1) service Filter on the form. The Filter does a web service call to retrieve data from an external system and puts the appropriate values into the fields on the form (these get returned back to the user as the Output mapping of the Active Link). Fred From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Neely, Leonard Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 1:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The Service Action in an Active Link ** I'd just like to add, that the Service Action (Active Links) was introduced in v7.1, so there might be some additional info (or at least described differently) in those docs. What is new to v7.5 is the Service Action in Filters. Leonard From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jason Miller Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 10:23 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The Service Action in an Active Link ** Hi Chris, I felt the same way you do when I read the docs regarding the Service action. I have dabbled with the Service action a little bit and the doc left me with some questions also. I am still not sure I understand its full power. The "butt" values you see are most likely in Run If qualifications in Filters. Something like 'z1D Action' = "GETDEFAULTCOMPANY". Then the filter is triggered on Service and GETDEFAULTCOMPANY is passed to it in the Service action mapping. A few uses would be: * Now you can really trigger a notification action from an Active Link instead of having do a Commit Changes or push a record to a form to trigger a filter. * Along the same lines you can now have an AL call a Service filter with a Set Fields from a Web Service or Filter API without having to do a commit to trigger a filter. * You can trigger a filter from an AL to to elevate permissions and perform an action with Admin privileges. (If not used appropriately this could also undermine permissions) In some ways it can clean up some creative coding we had to use in the past. Such as have a button/AL that sets a value to a DO field, does a Commit Changes that triggers a filter with low Execution Order looking for that value in the DO field to perform a Filter only action and then the Filter has a Go To action which bypasses the remaining filters just to avoid actually updating the record (Modified Date/Last Modified By). Now the AL can just trigger the filter (actually all Service filters related to the form). Hope that helps. Jason On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:07 PM, strauss <[email protected]> wrote: ** I am trying to reconstruct some of our customizations from ITSM 7.0 on the ITSM 7.6 system. One of the things I have run into is a new ARS 7.5 "feature" called a Service action. The documentation (two whole pages in the Workflow Objects Guide - pp. 107-108) might mean something to whoever wrote it, but I have yet to learn what these actions are, how they work, and how to trigger them just by reading it. According to ARUtilities, there are something like 137 active links (and 2 filters) that use this action, so _somebody_ knows how (and isn't telling). Many are the exact same name as the original 7.0 object, but the "set fields from form on a qualification" action used before has been replaced by these obtuse constructs. In the places in ITSM 7.6 where they were used, an Input Mapping sets a value in the hidden z1D Action field, which must trigger something. The values are things like "PERFORMCONTACTSEARCHNAME" - some sort of a flag word, which I cannot find documented ANYWHERE. Others are "GETDEFAULTCOMPANY", "BOUNDCOUNT", "PKECOORDSINGLEGRP", etc. Unless these are just placeholders that the programmers have pulled out of their butts at random, I would expect them to correlate to some intelligently designed action. My absolute favorite so far is "GIN" and I think I'll go look for some right now - maybe several glasses of it will help me with the BMC documentation. Any comprehensive explanations out there? Obviously I have been looking at ITSM 7.6 code and table data for way too long. Christopher Strauss, Ph.D. Call Tracking Administration Manager University of North Texas Computing & IT Center http://itsm.unt.edu/ _attend WWRUG10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _attend WWRUG10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _attend WWRUG10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _attend WWRUG10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
