Chaining Processes

kklosson

I will eventually have a long process that validates a couple of hundred fields. I will do this by creating processes that validate a section at a time. So I've created an action on a form that starts a process. The process it starts will call a number of processes to complete the whole validation process. I find that if I start a process directly, the process works normally. When I start the same process from another process, I just get a "process complete" message when clearly the chained process did not run.

Am I doing this correctly?

tford

Are there process inputs that you need to pass from one process to another?

tford

Have you looked at the logs?

kklosson

Nope. The first process is just a starter:

Process1:
Call Process2
Call Process3
etc...

Process2 works fine when I start it directly but when I start Process1, which at this point, does nothing but start Process2, it completes without any errors (which there are).

kklosson

Being still rather new, how does one view the logs?

kklosson

Disregard on the log - I think I have that figured out. But so far, it's not helping me resolve my issue.

tford

Try putting a DISPLAY MESSAGE action in the processes that you think are not firing.

When you say the logs are not helping, can you see the rules that are in the process in question being evaluated.

Tom

kklosson

I'll do that. Here's what I get from the log. When I start the process directly, it clearly shows that the rule failed (what I expect) and then does what it's supposed to do.

When I start the process from another process, it indicates that the attribute(s) being evaluated could not be resolved. To me, it's as if the object is no longer in context this way.

Hmmm.

kklosson

Based on a few trial and error procedures and viewing of logs, it seems fairly clear that when I start a process from another process, the process being called loses context of the current open object.

kklosson

Okay, since the record I'm validating is that of the LoggedIn user, I am able to state:

If LoggInBO.Attribute IS NOT DEFINED...

and this will work fine, but based on my reading of Processes, Rules, and Context, it seems that the BO should remain in context as the processes are started.

tford

Do you still have a question?

LoggedInRegularUser.AttributeName (as well as other LoggedIn... BOs) is always in context no matter where it is used.

Tom

technopak

I have a similar issue -

When calling a 2nd process from an initial process, the BO which was in context in the initial process cannot be referenced by the 2nd process. It seems to be not in context as far as the 2nd process is concerned. My understanding is that the BO should remain in context for other processes to use.

Can anyone clarify this ?

Peter

tford

Peter,

Have you passed it with a Process Input?

Tom

technopak

Hi Tom,

No I haven't passed it.

Obviously I should have 🙂

Peter

technopak

Still having some trouble -

My initial process uses two BOs, my 2nd process uses the same two BOs.

I've created Process Inputs for the 2nd process naming the two BOs and have referenced them in the code of the initial process which calls the 2nd process (USING Customer,CustomerID).

However, I am now receiving an 'Internal Error' message and the process cancels completely.

I think I'm passing the BOs properly. What could the error message mean ?

Peter

tford

what clues do the logs give?

technopak

Hi Tom,

Log shows system unable to resolve attributes of my CustomerID BO, the second BO which I am trying to pass as input to the 2nd process.

What is the syntax for passing multiple BOs ? Maybe a problem there ?

Peter

tford

There is no real syntax, you just click on the BO name in the Process Input area of the 2nd process.

When you save the 2nd process, if you don't have a context defined for a BO, it should give you a warning message.

technopak

Mmmm -

I've been calling the 2nd process with the code 'USING Customer, CustomerID' as suffix to the name of the process.

When I leave out that code and simply refer to the BOs by clicking on the BO name in the Process Input area of the 2nd process, I get a message in the logs saying Timer has made 200 transactions, and a reference to the error message.

Sounds like something is looping ........-

tford

Posting the rules of your 2 processes may make it easier to help you.