Action Manager

The Action Manager is used to create and manipulate automation associated with any of the Five Blocks.

List of Action Types

A list of all action types can be found here.

What is it?

The Action Manager displays the procedure associated with any combination of a WorkXpress Building Block (table, relationship, field, or form) and a corresponding trigger. For example, “saving” (the trigger) a “form” (the Block) most likely has an Action Manager Tool associated with it, and that Tool exposes the automation procedure that will happen when that Layout is saved.

Note that different types of Blocks may have different types of triggers associated with them. For example a link field doesn't “save” per se, it gets “clicked on”. Therefore, the trigger for a link field is “link is clicked on”.

However, the result of any trigger on any Block is always a procedure, and that procedure is always displayed in the Action Manager tool.

Where is it?

To access the Actions Manager, click on the Automation Layer and click on the control point of the block you wish to view actions for. The Action Manager will then launch in a separate popup browser window.

The Action Manager has Two Parts

Loading any Action Manager will result in a screen similar to the example shown below. This tool has two basic parts: triggers and procedures.

Triggers

Across the top of each Action Manager interface are tabs that group the various available triggers by type. These types correspond to the events that could take place from the Block you've clicked, and are usually arranged in order of use.

For example, for a form you might see tabs representing Form Security, When Form Loads, Validate, Save and Refresh/Reload. Taken together, those tabs organize all the events in the use-cycle of that form.

The image below shows three of these trigger “groupings” seen in the Action Manager of a link Field.

Form Action Manager Tabs

Form Security

Actions here run once every time a form loads. There are a limited number of actions available on this tab that will allow you to control what information is shown. You can use [[Field Type - Evaluation

Pre-Save Validation Tab

This tab displays the triggers fired by a Pre-Save Validation. Pre-Save triggers occur when a user indicates a desire to “Save” but before any saving actually takes place. These are special triggers that serve to validate the user's entry, and if invalidated, display an error message. If pre-save validation fails, the “Save” triggers will not fire.

Save Actions Tab

This tab displays the procedures triggered when a Block is saved, assuming it has passed validation. You may add actions to be executed for any Block affected by a save procedure.

Note: The Save Actions tab is sometimes a catch-all for miscellaneous triggers that don't belong anywhere else. For example, a link Field is not necessarily “saved”, it is “clicked on”. This trigger will appear in the Save Actions tab.

Procedures

The second part of any Action Manager interface is the procedure itself. The procedure is where you will attach Actions, and in so doing, build automation.

The below image shows the area of the Action Manager that represents the available procedures.

Note that you can click a row in the procedure to expand or collapse any element of a procedure when child elements are present.

Adding Actions

Choose any procedure for which you'd like to create or manage an Action.

You may add an Action to any Block in the procedure simply by dragging an Action from the palette into the procedure at the desired drop point.

New Actions are considered "Children"

Note that the added Action will always be a direct child of the Action Block to which it was added. Because Actions are processed in order, you want to make sure that you are inserting/adding your new Action to the right place in your procedure.

Editing Actions

To edit an existing Action that already has been created for a Block in a procedure, just click the Action's Block icon and choose Edit Action.

Often you can choose to edit the Action, delete it completely or disable it (which instructs the procedure to skip it).

action manager.txt · Last modified: 2016/09/14 18:19 (external edit)
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