Handling a Custom Dialog using Automation Scripts

Automation scripts are undoubtedly a powerful feature but we all know there are some limitations. For example automation scripts cannot be used to handle user input in a custom dialog box. This is because the scripting engine runs in the businessobjects layer which is below the maximouiweb layer that can handle DataBeans and user interface events.

However, leveraging the standard Maximo event, it is possible to circumvent this limitation.

In this post I will explain how to display a custom dialog in the Work Order Tracking application to ask for user input and launch a script to take an action when the user press the OK button.

In the example below I have built an improved version of the ‘Create Work Order’ action that creates a follow’up work order from the Work Order Tracking application.

This dialog provides the following improvements to the standard behaviour.

• Prevents accidental creation of followup work orders because the user has the option of cancelling the action. The standard action creates and saves the record without asking for confirmation.
• Allows the user to enter important values that must be set on the new work order.

Configurations

Non-persistent Object

The custom dialog will be based on a non-persistent object so we first need to create it using the Database Configuration application.

• Object: MXDCREATEWO
• Description: Non persistent object for the Create Work Order dialog
• Persistent: False
• Attributes:
  • WONUM – Same as: WORKORDER.WONUM – Required
  • SITEID – Same as: SITE.SITEID – Required
  • PRIORITY – Same as: WORKORDER.WOPRIORITY – Required
  • DESCRIPTION – Same as: WORKORDER.DESCRIPTION – Required

Now open the WORKORDER object in the Database Configuration application and create the following relationship:

• Object: WORKORDER
• Relationship: MXDCREATEWO
• Child Object: MXDCREATEWO
• Where Clause: empty

Apply database configuration changes. It shouldn’t be necessary to activate the admin mode.

Application

Open Application Designer and download the WOTRACK application definition. Edit the XML file with a text editor to create button and dialog definitions as described hereafter.

The first snippet displays the ‘Create Work Order’ button in the Follow-up Work section. Paste the XML fragment in bold after the “Follow-up Work” section.

<section id="main_grid9" label="Follow-up Work">
  <textbox dataattribute="origrecordid" id="main_grid9_1" menutype="normal" rechover="wo_recordhover"/>
  ...
</section>
<buttongroup id="main_mxdwodialog_btngrp" align="left">
  <pushbutton id="main_mxdwodialog_btngrp_1" label="Create Work Order" mxevent="mxdwodialog"/>
</buttongroup>

Now scroll down to the end of the file and paste the dialog definition just before the ‘presentation’ end tag.

<dialog id="mxdwodialog" label="Create Follow-up Work Order" relationship="MXDCREATEWO">
   <section border="true" id="mxdwodialog_grid1">
     <sectionrow id="mxdwodialog_grid1_1">
       <sectioncol id="mxdwodialog_grid1_1_1">
         <section id="mxdwodialog_grid1_1_1_grid2">
           <textbox dataattribute="wonum" id="mxdwodialog_wonum" inputmode="readonly"/>
           <textbox dataattribute="siteid" id="mxdwodialog_siteid" inputmode="readonly"/>
           <textbox dataattribute="priority" id="mxdwodialog_priority"/>
           <textbox dataattribute="description" id="mxdwodialog_description"/>
         </section>
       </sectioncol>
     </sectionrow>
   </section>
   <buttongroup id="mxdwodialog_2">
     <pushbutton id="mxdwodialog_2_1" label="OK" mxevent="dialogok"/>
     <pushbutton id="mxdwodialog_2_2" label="Cancel" mxevent="dialogcancel"/>
   </buttongroup>
 </dialog>

Let’s now analyze those application configurations.

• The pushbutton is linked to the “mxdwodialog” event. By default Maximo will search for a dialog with this ID.
• The “mxdwodialog” uses the “MXDCREATEWO” relationship defined above to understand what is the base mbo of the dialog. This is the empty relationship defined above from the WORKORDER object to the non-persistent MXDCREATEWO object.
• The two buttons OK/Cancel use the standard Maximo events dialogok/dialogcancel. Both will close automatically the dialog but we will see that the dialogok event will trigger a save on the MXDCREATEWO object.

The user interface is already completed and working. Try it. If you push the “Create Work Order” button it should display the custom dialog. OK and Cancel buttons will perfectly work so we just have to hook the business logic using automation scripts.

Automation scripts

First of all we need to initialize the WONUM and SITEID fields of the MXDCREATEWO object when the dialog is displayed. We can define an automation script on the Initialize event of the MXDCREATEWO object to perform this logic.

Create the following automation script:

• Script with Object Launch Point
• Launch Point: MXDCREATEWODIALOGINIT – Initialize the Create Work Order dialog
• Object: MXDCREATEWO
• Event: Initialize
• Script language: python

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Script: MXDCREATEWODIALOGINIT
# Launch Point: MXDCREATEWO - Initialize
# Initialize the Create Work Order dialog
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
from psdi.util.logging import MXLoggerFactory

logger = MXLoggerFactory.getLogger("maximo.script");
logger.info(">>> Entering script MXDCREATEWODIALOGINIT")

mbo.setValue("WONUM", mbo.getOwner().getString("WONUM"))
mbo.setValue("SITEID", mbo.getOwner().getString("SITEID"))

This scripts is quite straightforward. It first logs a row in the log and then sets the two fields on the current mbo (MXDCREATEWO) retrieving the value form the owner mbo (the WORKORDER). The mbo.getOwner() method is used for this purpose.

The tricky part is to detect the OK button press on the dialog. The secret hook here is the ‘save’ event. When the user’s press the OK button of the dialog, Maximo assumes that the mbo of the dialog must be saved. This means that we can execute a script using the Save event launch point.

Create the automation script as follows:

• Script with Object Launch Point
• Launch Point: MXDCREATEWODIALOGSAVE – Handles the Create Work Order dialog OK button
• Object: MXDCREATEWO
• Event: Save – Add – Before Save
• Script language: python

Script

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Script: MXDCREATEWODIALOGSAVE
# Launch Point: MXDCREATEWO - Save - Add - Before Save
# Handles the Create Work Order dialog OK button
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
from psdi.mbo import MboConstants
from psdi.util.logging import MXLoggerFactory

logger = MXLoggerFactory.getLogger("maximo.script")
logger.info(">>> Entering script MXDCREATEWODIALOGSAVE")

# to get the non persistent object of the dialog we need a small trick
mbo = mboset.getMbo(0)

# get the originationg work order MBO
origWo = mbo.getOwner()

# call the createWorkorder method to create a followup work order
newWo = origWo.createWorkorder(origWo.getThisMboSet(), None, False)

# set user-entered values in the new work order
newWo.setValue("WOPRIORITY", mbo.getString("PRIORITY"))
newWo.setValue("DESCRIPTION", mbo.getString("DESCRIPTION"))

Here are some consideration about the script above.

• The mbo implicit variable is not set. This is probably because the MXDCREATEWO object is non-persistent. The example shows that you can get it using the mboset.getMbo(0) method.
• Having the dialog’s mbo object we can get the owner mbo, the WORKORDER record using the classic mbo.getOwner() method.
• At this point we can use the owner mbo to perform any logic we need. In this case I’m calling the WO.createWorkorder method to create a followup work order and then I set some attributes values.

The described technique can be used for a wide variety of scenarios when you have to ask the user to enter some information and take some actions.