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This page is for application designers. It explains the properties you can set for actions.
Overview
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Creating Actions
You can create an action that is not associated with any stream. This is useful for actions that do not operate on stream data. For example you may want a button-click to open a different screen.
- Expand the repository branch for your application
- Right-click on Actions and select
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Actions created this way appear in the repository under Actions. You can also export this type of action.
You can also create an action that belongs to a stream. This option is available for backwards compatibility with applications designed with earlier versions of PhixFlow, that did not have stream item actions.
- Expand the repository branch for your application.
- Expand the stream on which the action will operate.
- Right-click on Actions and select
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You can create actions on layout components, such as buttons. You can also create actions in grid cells that contain:
- strings
- numbers
- dates or date-times
- boolean true/false.
You can drag an action onto a stream view to create a set of Action Buttons which appear on the top of the stream view. Actions can also be dragged into the menus belonging to an Application
See also OLD Actionflows and Action Configuration for related pages.
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Action Properties
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Basic Settings
Field | Description |
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Name | Enter the name of the action. |
Display Name | A stream view can have a default action configured. PhixFlow runs the action when the user double-clicks on a record in the stream view. Enter the name for the default action. PhixFlow displays this action name on a Stream View. |
Progress Indicator Settings
Field | Description |
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Show progress indicator after (ms) | Enter the number of milliseconds which need to pass after the action is submitted before PhixFlow displays a progress indicator. |
In Progress Message | Enter a message that you want the user to see with the progress indicator. If not specified, PhixFlow displays a default progress message. |
In Progress Popup Message | Enter a message to display in a pop-up window. Use the toolbar to format the message text. You can provide additional information to the user to explain what the action is doing. |
Context Parameters
Use context parameters to specify conditions that apply to the action
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Include Previous Context Parameters |
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Update Parent Context |
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Context parameters | This property has a toolbar with standard buttons. The grid contains a list of context parameters that affect whether or not the action runs. To edit the properties of a context parameter, double-click its name. To add a stream item action to the list, click
To remove a context parameter from the action, select it and click
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Confirmation Message
Field | Description | ||||||||||||||||
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Ask for Confirmation |
To provide a customised confirmation message, use the Confirmation Message property. | ||||||||||||||||
Confirmation Message | Optionally, enter your own text to display as the confirmation message. Use the text formatting toolbar to format the message. The maximum length for a message string is determined by System Configuration → System Tuning → Maximum Bigstring Size. |
File Upload
Field | Description | ||||||||
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File Upload | Use this property for an action that will upload a file.
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Tag Expr. | Enter an expression that sets the value of the tag for the file. You can use this tag in a file collector to read into PhixFlow files that the action has uploaded. The tag expression can refer to:
You can return a list of the names of uploaded files using the |
Action Validation
Field | Description | ||||||||
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Validation Expression | Enter a validation expression. This expression is evaluated at the start of any Insert or Update actions. If the validation expression generates any error messages (using the error function) then the action is abandoned. The validation expression is not used to decide whether or not to run the selected task plan. The validation expression can include multiple statements by wrapping them in a
The usual message functions debug(message), info(message), warning(message), and error(message) are all available to be used in these expressions and will result in messages being written to the system console logs.
Example 1 Validate that the sum of the selected record amounts equate to zero before allowing the action to be executed.
Example 2 Validate that the user entered comment is at least 10 characters long, else write a warning to the log.
Using values from other views You can also refer to records selected in other views by using their screen zone names. E.g. if the screen also contains a screen zone name
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Stream Item Action Rules
This property has a toolbar with standard buttons. The grid contains a list of rules that determine whether or not a stream item action runs.
To edit the properties of a context parameter, double-click its name. To add a stream item action to the list, click
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To remove a context parameter from the action, select it and click
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A stream item action is the CRUD action that can operate on a data record. The rules listed here determine whether or not a stream item action runs.
When the action runs, PhixFlow uses this list of rules to determine which of the listed
Action will run.
Double-click a rule to open its properties and specify rule details and attributes: see
Action Rule. This grid displays:
- Order: The order in which the rules are evaluated.
- Stream: The backing stream.
- Name: The rule name.
- Expression: If this expression evaluates to true, this action will be run. A blank (null) expression counts as true.
When the action runs, PhixFlow evaluates the action rules in order. For each action rule that evaluates to true, PhixFlow will run that action.
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The action type of the first action rule is overwritten if the button that initiates the action has both an Action Type and an Action; see Component |
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Run Task Plan
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Run Selected Task Plan |
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Task Plan Rules | This section has a toolbar with standard buttons and
The grid contains a list of task plans and their associated expression. The expression is the rule to determine whether the task plan runs. To add a task plan to the list:
To remove a task plan, use the toolbar button
To add an expression, double-click the task plan in the grid to open a task plan rule property tab. The first task plan whose expression evaluates to true will be run. Only this task plan will be run. If none of the expressions evaluates to true, no task plan will be run. Double-click a task plan rule to specify:
See Task Plans for details. |
Action Completion
Field | Description |
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Close Parent Screen | If you tick this flag, the initiating screen will be closed once the action has completed. |
Open Post Screen | If you tick this flag, a separate screen will be opened once the action has completed. The screen to open is determines by the screen rules. These are only available if you have ticked this flag. Any filter of any view on the post screen can reference any context parameters set on this action. If the specified screen is already open it will be brought to the front and refreshed, rather than a second instance of the screen opening. |
URL Expression | A URL which will be opened when the Action has completed. This may be provided as a fixed URL or as an expression evaluating to a plain text string. The expression can reference the Form fields, Context Parameters or attributes of Records selected on the view or screen from which the action was initiated. |
Screen Rules available if Open Post Screen | This field is only available if the Open Post Screen is ticked. A list of screen that can be opened after this action, for each one a rule to determine whether this is the screen that will be opened. The first screen whose expression evaluates to true will be opened. Only this screen will be opened. If none of the expressions evaluates to true, no screen will be opened. For each screen rule define the following fields:
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Result
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Result includes Warnings |
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Result includes Errors |
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Result Message Timeout (s) | Optionally, specify the number of seconds that the result message is displayed to the user. | ||||||||||||||||
| Enter the text for a message that PhixFlow will display when the action has completed. Use the toolbar to format the message. You can use the message to notify the user of a summary of the action, or the to provide information about the completed state. You can include expressions within the message by enclosing each expression in curly brackets For result messages that report on the status of the action, you can use the following internal variables in the expressions:
You can also use context parameters and values to report different messages. For example if you have a context parameter (called
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Access Permissions
For details about how to control access to an action, see Common Properties → Access Permissions.
Advanced
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Prevent Parallel Processing |
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Wait for Selection |
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Target view | Enter the name of the stream view to which this action will apply. | ||||||||||||||||
Form View | You can specify a form view to appear when the user starts the action. They will be able to enter values on this form view, and the values can be used to update selected records for an update action, or populate fields for an insert action. Select a form view either from the drop-down list of all forms views in PhixFlow or click
Values entered in the form view are referenced in expressions in the action with the form.
For example, if there is a field on the form with the label
If this is an update action, then the form will be pre-populated with the values from the selected record. Where multiple records are selected, then only those values which are common to all the selected records will be displayed. For insert action, when the form pops up all fields will be blank. |
Additional Properties for Update or Delete Actions
Field | Description |
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Maximum Items Expr. | This field appears if the update action selected is Update or Delete. The expressions entered here must evaluate to a positive whole number. The expression can reference any fields entered on the Form View associated with this action, any attributes of any records selected on the view or screenfrom which the action was initiated and any of the Context Parameters configured for this action. If the number of items selected on the view from which this action is initiated, or retrieved by the filter configured on this action, is greater than this number then an error message will be generated and no updates or deletes will take place. |
Minimum Items Expr. | This field appears if the update action selected is Update or Delete. The expression entered here must evaluate to a positive whole number. The expression can reference any fields entered on the Form View associated with this action, any attributes of any records selected on the view or screenfrom which the action was initiated and any of the Context Parameters configured for this action. If the number of items selected on the view from which this action is initiated, or retrieved by the filter configured on this action, is less than this number then an error message will be generated and no updates or deletes will take place. |
Using Variables in Expressions
In actions, the _form, _grid and _gridRow act on a specific record. The record depends on the structure of layout components on the screen.
Action expression variable | Where | ||||
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Stream view directly on a screen | form on a screen | stream view on a form | form on a card | grid on a card | |
_form acts on the record | currently selected in the view | currently displayed on the form | currently displayed on the form | currently displayed on the card | backing the card |
_grid acts on the record | currently selected in the view | currently selected in the view | |||
_gridRow acts on the record | current record |