Looking up a value whilst creating a new record

rocketman

Still trying to get my head around the way IM works.

I'm trying to log flights for my club. I need to record pilot, launch time, landing time duration etc then calculate the cost.

Ok - last bits are easy, but the way we work is the duty clerk gets the membership number of the pilot, and (currently) enters it. I then want IM to dive off and find the pilots name as verification that the correct membership number is entered before pressing the create button. I don't want to select it from a list a-la the CRM examples I just want to go grab it and show the results. In ASP.Net terms, I guess I'm asking, how do you kick off a process when a field loses focus (ie when I tab out of it)

tford

You said you don't want to select from a list, but would a drop down fit your needs?

technopak

Hi Rocketman,

I'm not sure focus-based operations are possible with Aware. I had a similar requirement recently which essentially needed to check existing records in a BO before creating a new record.

The suggestion from Support was to use a separate and temporary object to hold the initial data (pilots ID), then use a process to query the existing records and create the new persistent object from the data returned by the query.

It's the long way around I know, but it works well.

Hope this is useful,

Peter

aware_support

Focus-based operations ARE possible in Aware IM. All you have to do is define a rule to check whatever you have to check and then mark the rule as "executed dynamically". You can do it in the Advanced tab of the rule.

Whenever the field that the rule depends on loses focus Aware IM will fire off the rule and display the results immediately on screen.

rocketman

Hi Peter - and aware support,

Thanks for getting back so quick (as always). I'll try both scenarios later and see which one works best

pbrad

Hi,

Another option is to create a non-persisted object with a reference object in it to the member. Configure the form object as a dropdown where the data is filled in automatically as the user starts to type the membership number. In the dropdown show the membership number and the member name so that the user gets instant feedback that they have the correct member.

To implement, start a process that has the first step of entering the new non persisted BO and a second step of creating a flight record where the flightrecord.member = the non-persisted BO.Member and then editing it.

Pete

tford

Sounds very creative, Pete. Will have to try this.

Tom

rocketman

Hi Pete,

One to keep in mind for other apps I think, but this one is very definitely a web app. The input Pc will be at our launchpoint connected via Wi-Fi to the internet and then up to our ISP.(upload 256k, download 2.5Mb - on a good day)

Have you a handle on what the performance will be like using your scenario?. Sounds like a lot of round trips to the server?

pbrad

Hi,

I'm not really sure what you are talking about. This is a typical approach that I use for allowing users to easily choose the reference item prior to the creation of the object. It has nothing to do with resource usage or whether it is a web app or not. Although you should limit the number of items that show in the dropdown list to 5 or 10 max as you are really only looking for it to return 1 item but if you start typing in a number that matches the first number of a large number of reference items, it can slow it down, particularly if you have thousands of records but this is not a problem if you limit the return.

Pete

rocketman

Hi Guys,

Flicking the "Execute dynamically switch (awareim supprot did the trick, I also tried doing my lookup via an interactive drop down and both together gave me the solution I was after - thanks to all.

technopak

Hi,

Can someone explain exactly what switch to use to enable this feature ?

Using build 1162.

Thanks,

Peter

tford

Peter,

On a rule, click on the Adanced tab. You will see a checkbox toward the bottom of the page "use rule in dynamic re-calculation on forms".

Tom

technopak

Thanks Tom,

I'm probably mis-interpreting the functionality of this technique, but I took it that I could use it to test if a form field is blank and provide instant feedback to users advising of the need to complete the field.

When I create the rule such as

'IF MyAttribute IS UNDEFINED THEN
call a process displaying a little warning',

nothing happens when the blank field loses focus. But when the user clicks the form's save button, the process warning message displays in a perpetual loop.

Any suggestions about what's going on or have I mis-understood ?

Peter

pbrad

Hi,

Are you running the most current version? Earlier versions had issues with dynamic updating.

Pete

technopak

Hi Pete,

Yup I'm running 1162 🙂

Peter

tford

Peter,

First, I would use REPORT ERROR rather than running a process.

Even with REPORT ERROR though, it appears dynamic rules will not display the REPORT ERROR of a rule that tests for IS UNDEFINED until you click the Save button.

This looks like a bug to me -- or at least a limitation right now.

Tom

rocketman

Hi Technopak,

This from the user manual

" Rule usage during form re-calculation
Sometimes it may be necessary to dynamically re-calculate attribute values on forms while the user is making changes. For example, you may have a calculation rule that calculates value of an attribute based on values of other attributes and you want the user to see the results of re-calculation immediately after he makes a change that affects the calculation. In this case it is necessary to mark the rule that performs the calculation, so that Aware IM executes this rule dynamically while the form is being changed."

I think your problem might be that the field isn't changing. Internally - even though you are not specifically using "Was changed", AW might be looking for the field change to trigger the rule. The dynamic recalculation worked for me so I'm just making a guess here. Maybe support could enlighten us

technopak

Thanks Tom and rocketman for the comments.

Tom - I've the same experience that you mention with the REPORT ERROR technique, nothing happens till you click SAVE. In fact if you use REPORT ERROR in a rule of the BO, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether 'dynamic' is ticked or not. The system behaviour appears the same.
On reflection, this probably isn't a big deal for the user, so bug or not I'm happy to use REPORT ERROR for now.

rocketman - Having read your post, I wonder if the 'dynamic re-calculation' was ever intended for 'lost focus/do process' style operation at all? The excerpt from the manual is obviously aimed at numeric re-calculation.
Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely here.

As usual, than you both for helpful posting.

Peter