Stream Item Action Attribute

This page is for application designers who want to configure actions.

Action Concepts

A stream has a set of Stream Item Actions. These specify an operation that can happen to a record in the stream. Stream item actions can create, read, update or delete a record, so are called CRUD actions.

You can configure an Action to perform several operations on the data in different streams. This is because the action contains a list of stream item actions that can come from different streams.

The action can potentially run any of the actions in its list. To decide which stream item action to run, the action has a rule associated with each stream item action. When a Stream Item Action Rule evaluates to true, the action runs the action and therefore makes a change to the data in the stream.

When you are creating a stream item action for a stream, use this property tab to add an expression that evaluates to the new value for that stream attribute.

Create a Stream Item Action.
In the Basic Settings → Attributes to Update section there is a grid of attributes.
In the grid, double-click on a attribute.
PhixFlow opens the stream item action attribute property tab.

Stream Item Action Attribute Properties

This property tab is not available from the repository. It only opens from the Stream Item Actions properties.

For information about the properties toolbar, and about the sections Parent Details, Analysis Models, Description and Audit Summary, see Common Properties. For a full list of all the PhixFlow property tabs and windows, see Property Tabs.

Basic Settings

Field Description

Order Enter the order in which the attribute expression will be evaluated.

Attribute Select the name of the stream attribute that will be populated.

Expression

Enter an Expression to generate a new attribute value.

To refer to stream attributes, pipes and elements in the expression, use:

<attribute-name> to refer to the current value of the record you are about to update.
<pipe-name> to refer to lookup pipes on the same stream as the action. The pipe cannot reference _out variables directly.
<dashboard-element-name> refers to selected records from other dashboard views using their dashboard element names.

Example

For example:

A dashboard element name is ACCTS.
In the dashboard, the user will select records in a grid view.
For the selected records, you want the action to sum the values in the amount attribute.

Enter an expression:

sum(ACCTS.amount)

You can also use the following prefixes:

_prompt.<form-field-name> to refer to fields from any user input form associated with this action.
_form.<form-field-name> to refer to the current value displayed in a field on the form.
Example

In the screenshot below, the expressions use _form to refer to fields Unit Price, Quantity and VAT Percentage. The user sees these fields on a form.

_out.<attribute-name> to refer to the current value of an attribute in the action.
For example, in the screenshot above, you could refer to the value for the attribute ChargeAmount in VATAmount with the expression _out.ChargeAmount.
_context.<context-variable-name> refer to any context variable defined for this action.
_gridRow.<stream-view-attribute-name> to refer to the edited value of an attribute when the Filter Type is Edited Items.
_gridRow contains a recordset pointing to an individual row that has been modified.

Messages

You can use the following message functions in the expression. When the action runs, any messages are written to the system console and logs.

If PhixFlow reports an error, it stops the action from being completed for the current item in the stream. However, the error does not stop the action from updating or inserting other stream items.