Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread David Sanders
Hi Brien

What you are describing is definitely *not* a normalized data structure as
you are storing and maintaining the linked data in your main form... but
leaving that aside.

The suggestion from Fred would work for small data volumes, but as soon as
you are updating larger volumes you will have performance problems and hit
the AR server filter limit, so assuming you still need the scheduled
escalation to sync your data...

Create your own Modified Date and Last Modified By fields and set values in
these fields through a filter when the record is created or modified where
$USER$ != AR_ESCALATOR.  Then in your form display your custom fields
instead of the core fields.

HTH

David Sanders
Solution Architect
Enterprise Service Suite @ Work / e-ServiceSuite 
 
tel +44 1494 468980
mobile +44 7710 377761
email david.sand...@westoverconsulting.co.uk
 
web  http://www.westoverconsulting.co.uk
 
    http://www.e-servicesuite.co.uk
 
    

 
ITIL – SaaS – On Premise



-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W
Sent: 10 February 2012 03:03
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

If your normalization happens on every save of the record then are you
having to run thru them on a schedule to update them because something
somewhere else changed?

i.e.  If you are setting a Name field in Form AAA on save, are you trying to
keep that Name field in sync with a Name somewhere else (like on Form BBB)?
I would look at trying to detect when the source of Name (Form BBB) is
changed and force the related records (Form AAA) to update at that time.

Fred


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:13 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

I've got a lot of filters that do some normalization by setting some key
fields via a lookup.  This might be a bad idea, but I generally create
escalations that do some tidying up-- they just blast through all the
records and update a trigger field to trigger the modify filters.  
Having all the records last modified by AR_ESCALATOR is starting to
irritate some of my colleagues, so I'd like to stop doing this.  Any
thoughts?  I've tried several ways to get an escalation to trigger the
modify actions without actually modifying the record-- without any success.
I also definitely do not want to duplicate the code in the modify actions
and copy them into the escalation.

Thanks!

Brien


___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are

___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are


Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Ben Chernys
What Fred is saying is avoid the escalation by including your normalization
at time of save or in his second case at time of save of another form (with
a non AR_ESCALATOR user).  (Sorry Fred.  Just wanted to make that a bit
clearer).

The ONLY way to modify a record without changing the fields modifier and
modified time is through the Merge API which is not doable by workflow.  It
is certainly doable with other methods like a Meta-Update script, your own
code in a binary etc.

ARS always performs the save when fields that set the dirty bit are set -
even if they are set to the same value.  
Ie:  db.f = 1; set fields f = 1; modification made.

By rewriting your filters to diagnose that there are no changes rather than
arbitrarily setting values to equal values, and by turning off the
Modified flag  on your trigger field,  or by turning off the dirty bit at
the end (a new filter that compares the fields you are modifying with the
db.fields and if no changes turns off the dirty bit).  

This would still leave AR_ESCALATOR on those records that really were
changed but (presumably) not on all records.

Meta-Update by default does not issue the modify when nothing has changed.
So certainly you would be able to do this with Meta-Update no problem.  You
also do not run into the filter limit.

Cheers
Ben Chernys

Senior Software Architect
Software Tool House Inc.

Canada / Deutschland / Germany
Mobile:  +49 171 380 2329GMT + 1 + [ DST ]
Email:   Ben.Chernys _AT_ softwaretoolhouse.com
Web: www.softwaretoolhouse.com

Check out Software Tool House's free Diary Editor.

Meta-Update, our premium ARS Data tool, lets you automate 
your imports, migrations, in no time at all, without programming, 
without staging forms, without merge workflow. 
http://www.softwaretoolhouse.com/  



-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W
Sent: February-10-12 04:03
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

If your normalization happens on every save of the record then are you
having to run thru them on a schedule to update them because something
somewhere else changed?

i.e.  If you are setting a Name field in Form AAA on save, are you trying to
keep that Name field in sync with a Name somewhere else (like on Form BBB)?
I would look at trying to detect when the source of Name (Form BBB) is
changed and force the related records (Form AAA) to update at that time.

Fred


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:13 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

I've got a lot of filters that do some normalization by setting some key
fields via a lookup.  This might be a bad idea, but I generally create
escalations that do some tidying up-- they just blast through all the
records and update a trigger field to trigger the modify filters.  
Having all the records last modified by AR_ESCALATOR is starting to
irritate some of my colleagues, so I'd like to stop doing this.  Any
thoughts?  I've tried several ways to get an escalation to trigger the
modify actions without actually modifying the record-- without any success.
I also definitely do not want to duplicate the code in the modify actions
and copy them into the escalation.

Thanks!

Brien


___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are

___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are


Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Brien Dieterle
 Editor.

Meta-Update, our premium ARS Data tool, lets you automate
your imports, migrations, in no time at all, without programming,
without staging forms, without merge workflow.
http://www.softwaretoolhouse.com/



-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W
Sent: February-10-12 04:03
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

If your normalization happens on every save of the record then are you
having to run thru them on a schedule to update them because something
somewhere else changed?

i.e.  If you are setting a Name field in Form AAA on save, are you trying to
keep that Name field in sync with a Name somewhere else (like on Form BBB)?
I would look at trying to detect when the source of Name (Form BBB) is
changed and force the related records (Form AAA) to update at that time.

Fred


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:13 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

I've got a lot of filters that do some normalization by setting some key
fields via a lookup.  This might be a bad idea, but I generally create
escalations that do some tidying up-- they just blast through all the
records and update a trigger field to trigger the modify filters.
Having all the records last modified by AR_ESCALATOR is starting to
irritate some of my colleagues, so I'd like to stop doing this.  Any
thoughts?  I've tried several ways to get an escalation to trigger the
modify actions without actually modifying the record-- without any success.
I also definitely do not want to duplicate the code in the modify actions
and copy them into the escalation.

Thanks!

Brien


___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are

___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are



___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are


Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Ben Chernys
Actually, I meant you do the set on problem but also set a display only,
change flag inhibited command field.

The last filter on modify on problem has a qualification of
  Command field = my command and
  (db.firstname = firstname and db.lastname = lastname and and and)
That filter then does an Execute Process clean change flag which cancels the
update.  

Turns out that that idea is wrong.  

The Set-Change-Flag process is only available in Active Links and not in
Filters.  I guess once the Modify is initiated there's no way to stop it.

So, a slight change then more in line with what you are thinking

Two DO fields on problem; one to initiate the command, the second to see if
the data has changed

Set fields from SQL
  Select count(*) from user form where key = key and firstname = firstname
and last name = last name etc

The next filter sets the firstname, lastname, etc and has the qual of DO
field = 0

Both the DO fields have Disable change flag set.

You can still run into filter limits because all transactions under a single
escalation are counted together.

There is always the use of the Service which if it diagnoses a change could
then push to itself.

Sorry.  I though you could cancel an update but apparently not once the
dirty bit is set.

Cheers
Ben

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: February-10-12 19:25
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Thank you all for the feedback.  I should have also mentioned that modifying
the records for no reason is really at the core of the 
issue, so the modified by field is a side-issue.   Also, normalization 
versus denormalization-- it is confusing but as far as I understand it you
would normally start with normalized data and then add denormalization for
performance or, in this case, because that's what AR System encourages.
That is my goal, to have a fully normalized data structure with the added
denormalized data on top.

So I'd like to try to run through what Ben has suggested here on an example,
and see if I understand what he's saying.

Let's say I have a Problem Ticket form:
FirstName
LastName
UserID(ForeignKey)
ProblemInfo

And I have a User form with:
UserID(PrimaryKey)
FirstName
LastName

So if I follow Ben's suggestion I would add some logic on the Problem Ticket
form to diagnose whether the Userinfo has changed instead of just
arbitrarily doing a set operation for all records.  So I create two
display-only fields on Problem Ticket and set Disable Change Flag = True?

FirstName
LastName
UserID
ProblemInfo
ZTrigger (display only, disable change flag) ZCompare (display only, disable
change flag)

So my escalation can set ZTrigger = $timestamp$ to trigger the on-modify
filters without actually modifying the record?  Assuming that is technically
possible, then I could have On-Modify filters that do the
diagnosis:  Do a set-fields ZCompare = Firstname (from User Form).  
Then another filter w/ qual: If ZCompare != DB.FirstName, set-fields
Firstname = ZCompare.  Then do the same thing with LastName via a filter
guide, I suppose.

Fred's suggestion of triggering updates on the source-side (User) actually
seems to make the most sense, although David suggests that might be a
performance problem.  If a single update to a user record has to go update
5,000 records across multiple forms, that might be a problem.  Although that
could be changed to just run off-peak anyway via an escalation (but now you
can't compare DB to TR and so you'd have to store previous values in extra
fields, or a set a generic sync flag field? Doh!).

I think I must just have a tendency to try to keep workflow self-contained
and not creep onto other forms.  Actually, that is not the only reason, I
just remembered that, quite often, we allow arbitrary input and then we want
to link it later.  For instance with the Problem Ticket we might take
Firstname and Lastname before there is ever a User account, so UserID is
NULL.  The only way to resolve these is to have an escalation attempt to
link it to the User record at a later time (via first and last name).  So if
Ben's suggestion works, that would be nice to avoid the excessive updates.
I'm also thinking of another workflow where a form waits for a record to
be created in another system.  
Right now I have an escalation trigger a modify to perform a check to see
if that record has been created yet in a view form, and once it finds a
match it moves on to the next task.  Again that would be nice to avoid
modify updates for just a check.

I think I'm done rambling, thank you again I'll post back if I successfully
can trigger the on-modify filters via an escalation without actually
modifying the records using the tips Ben suggested.

Brien

On 2/10/2012 8:12 AM, Ben Chernys wrote:
 What Fred is saying is avoid the escalation by including your 
 normalization at time of save or in his

Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Grooms, Frederick W
Another way I have seen people keep things like this in sync is to use a Join 
form

The New Form Problem Ticket/User Join would Outer Join Problem Ticket and 
User on ProblemTicket.UserID = User.USerID.  It would also have First and Last 
Name from Problem Ticket and from User.  

Your Escalation would run against this join where:   
   ProblemTicket.FirstName != User.FirstName OR ProblemTicket.LastName != 
User.LastName OR ProblemTicket.UserId = $NULL$

On Finding a record that meets the criteria you would Push a flag to 
ProblemTicket to have it update the fields needed.

This is an approach I have used when I am trying to keep User info in sync with 
an external system (I have a View Form of the External table)

Fred

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:25 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Thank you all for the feedback.  I should have also mentioned that 
modifying the records for no reason is really at the core of the 
issue, so the modified by field is a side-issue.   Also, normalization 
versus denormalization-- it is confusing but as far as I understand it 
you would normally start with normalized data and then add 
denormalization for performance or, in this case, because that's what AR 
System encourages.  That is my goal, to have a fully normalized data 
structure with the added denormalized data on top.

So I'd like to try to run through what Ben has suggested here on an 
example, and see if I understand what he's saying.

Let's say I have a Problem Ticket form:
FirstName
LastName
UserID(ForeignKey)
ProblemInfo

And I have a User form with:
UserID(PrimaryKey)
FirstName
LastName

So if I follow Ben's suggestion I would add some logic on the Problem 
Ticket form to diagnose whether the Userinfo has changed instead of 
just arbitrarily doing a set operation for all records.  So I create 
two display-only fields on Problem Ticket and set Disable Change Flag = 
True?

FirstName
LastName
UserID
ProblemInfo
ZTrigger (display only, disable change flag)
ZCompare (display only, disable change flag)

So my escalation can set ZTrigger = $timestamp$ to trigger the on-modify 
filters without actually modifying the record?  Assuming that is 
technically possible, then I could have On-Modify filters that do the 
diagnosis:  Do a set-fields ZCompare = Firstname (from User Form).  
Then another filter w/ qual: If ZCompare != DB.FirstName, set-fields 
Firstname = ZCompare.  Then do the same thing with LastName via a filter 
guide, I suppose.

Fred's suggestion of triggering updates on the source-side (User) 
actually seems to make the most sense, although David suggests that 
might be a performance problem.  If a single update to a user record has 
to go update 5,000 records across multiple forms, that might be a 
problem.  Although that could be changed to just run off-peak anyway via 
an escalation (but now you can't compare DB to TR and so you'd have to 
store previous values in extra fields, or a set a generic sync flag 
field? Doh!).

I think I must just have a tendency to try to keep workflow 
self-contained and not creep onto other forms.  Actually, that is not 
the only reason, I just remembered that, quite often, we allow arbitrary 
input and then we want to link it later.  For instance with the Problem 
Ticket we might take Firstname and Lastname before there is ever a User 
account, so UserID is NULL.  The only way to resolve these is to have an 
escalation attempt to link it to the User record at a later time (via 
first and last name).  So if Ben's suggestion works, that would be nice 
to avoid the excessive updates.  I'm also thinking of another workflow 
where a form waits for a record to be created in another system.  
Right now I have an escalation trigger a modify to perform a check to 
see if that record has been created yet in a view form, and once it 
finds a match it moves on to the next task.  Again that would be nice to 
avoid modify updates for just a check.

I think I'm done rambling, thank you again I'll post back if I 
successfully can trigger the on-modify filters via an escalation without 
actually modifying the records using the tips Ben suggested.

Brien

On 2/10/2012 8:12 AM, Ben Chernys wrote:
 What Fred is saying is avoid the escalation by including your normalization
 at time of save or in his second case at time of save of another form (with
 a non AR_ESCALATOR user).  (Sorry Fred.  Just wanted to make that a bit
 clearer).

 The ONLY way to modify a record without changing the fields modifier and
 modified time is through the Merge API which is not doable by workflow.  It
 is certainly doable with other methods like a Meta-Update script, your own
 code in a binary etc.

 ARS always performs the save when fields that set the dirty bit are set -
 even if they are set to the same

Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Ben Chernys
I like that.  Nice and clean.
Cheers
Ben

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W
Sent: February-10-12 19:59
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Another way I have seen people keep things like this in sync is to use a
Join form

The New Form Problem Ticket/User Join would Outer Join Problem Ticket and
User on ProblemTicket.UserID = User.USerID.  It would also have First and
Last Name from Problem Ticket and from User.  

Your Escalation would run against this join where:   
   ProblemTicket.FirstName != User.FirstName OR ProblemTicket.LastName !=
User.LastName OR ProblemTicket.UserId = $NULL$

On Finding a record that meets the criteria you would Push a flag to
ProblemTicket to have it update the fields needed.

This is an approach I have used when I am trying to keep User info in sync
with an external system (I have a View Form of the External table)

Fred

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:25 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Thank you all for the feedback.  I should have also mentioned that modifying
the records for no reason is really at the core of the 
issue, so the modified by field is a side-issue.   Also, normalization 
versus denormalization-- it is confusing but as far as I understand it you
would normally start with normalized data and then add denormalization for
performance or, in this case, because that's what AR System encourages.
That is my goal, to have a fully normalized data structure with the added
denormalized data on top.

So I'd like to try to run through what Ben has suggested here on an example,
and see if I understand what he's saying.

Let's say I have a Problem Ticket form:
FirstName
LastName
UserID(ForeignKey)
ProblemInfo

And I have a User form with:
UserID(PrimaryKey)
FirstName
LastName

So if I follow Ben's suggestion I would add some logic on the Problem Ticket
form to diagnose whether the Userinfo has changed instead of just
arbitrarily doing a set operation for all records.  So I create two
display-only fields on Problem Ticket and set Disable Change Flag = True?

FirstName
LastName
UserID
ProblemInfo
ZTrigger (display only, disable change flag) ZCompare (display only, disable
change flag)

So my escalation can set ZTrigger = $timestamp$ to trigger the on-modify
filters without actually modifying the record?  Assuming that is technically
possible, then I could have On-Modify filters that do the
diagnosis:  Do a set-fields ZCompare = Firstname (from User Form).  
Then another filter w/ qual: If ZCompare != DB.FirstName, set-fields
Firstname = ZCompare.  Then do the same thing with LastName via a filter
guide, I suppose.

Fred's suggestion of triggering updates on the source-side (User) actually
seems to make the most sense, although David suggests that might be a
performance problem.  If a single update to a user record has to go update
5,000 records across multiple forms, that might be a problem.  Although that
could be changed to just run off-peak anyway via an escalation (but now you
can't compare DB to TR and so you'd have to store previous values in extra
fields, or a set a generic sync flag field? Doh!).

I think I must just have a tendency to try to keep workflow self-contained
and not creep onto other forms.  Actually, that is not the only reason, I
just remembered that, quite often, we allow arbitrary input and then we want
to link it later.  For instance with the Problem Ticket we might take
Firstname and Lastname before there is ever a User account, so UserID is
NULL.  The only way to resolve these is to have an escalation attempt to
link it to the User record at a later time (via first and last name).  So if
Ben's suggestion works, that would be nice to avoid the excessive updates.
I'm also thinking of another workflow where a form waits for a record to
be created in another system.  
Right now I have an escalation trigger a modify to perform a check to see
if that record has been created yet in a view form, and once it finds a
match it moves on to the next task.  Again that would be nice to avoid
modify updates for just a check.

I think I'm done rambling, thank you again I'll post back if I successfully
can trigger the on-modify filters via an escalation without actually
modifying the records using the tips Ben suggested.

Brien

On 2/10/2012 8:12 AM, Ben Chernys wrote:
 What Fred is saying is avoid the escalation by including your 
 normalization at time of save or in his second case at time of save of 
 another form (with a non AR_ESCALATOR user).  (Sorry Fred.  Just 
 wanted to make that a bit clearer).

 The ONLY way to modify a record without changing the fields modifier 
 and modified time is through

Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-10 Thread Brien Dieterle
Hmm, yeah this is pretty clean, and allows you to do the diagnosis via 
the (passive) join instead of via the filter madness.  Seems like there 
are several tradeoffs with any approach, be it performance or simply 
added complexity.  I was really hoping to keep *all* the complexity 
within an on-modify filter and then just trigger that when modified and 
periodically (two birds, one stone).  Oh well, we don't always get 
exactly what we want.  Thanks for your help!!


Brien

On 2/10/2012 12:45 PM, Ben Chernys wrote:

I like that.  Nice and clean.
Cheers
Ben

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W
Sent: February-10-12 19:59
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Another way I have seen people keep things like this in sync is to use a
Join form

The New Form Problem Ticket/User Join would Outer Join Problem Ticket and
User on ProblemTicket.UserID = User.USerID.  It would also have First and
Last Name from Problem Ticket and from User.

Your Escalation would run against this join where:
ProblemTicket.FirstName != User.FirstName OR ProblemTicket.LastName !=
User.LastName OR ProblemTicket.UserId = $NULL$

On Finding a record that meets the criteria you would Push a flag to
ProblemTicket to have it update the fields needed.

This is an approach I have used when I am trying to keep User info in sync
with an external system (I have a View Form of the External table)

Fred

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:25 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

Thank you all for the feedback.  I should have also mentioned that modifying
the records for no reason is really at the core of the
issue, so the modified by field is a side-issue.   Also, normalization
versus denormalization-- it is confusing but as far as I understand it you
would normally start with normalized data and then add denormalization for
performance or, in this case, because that's what AR System encourages.
That is my goal, to have a fully normalized data structure with the added
denormalized data on top.

So I'd like to try to run through what Ben has suggested here on an example,
and see if I understand what he's saying.

Let's say I have a Problem Ticket form:
FirstName
LastName
UserID(ForeignKey)
ProblemInfo

And I have a User form with:
UserID(PrimaryKey)
FirstName
LastName

So if I follow Ben's suggestion I would add some logic on the Problem Ticket
form to diagnose whether the Userinfo has changed instead of just
arbitrarily doing a set operation for all records.  So I create two
display-only fields on Problem Ticket and set Disable Change Flag = True?

FirstName
LastName
UserID
ProblemInfo
ZTrigger (display only, disable change flag) ZCompare (display only, disable
change flag)

So my escalation can set ZTrigger = $timestamp$ to trigger the on-modify
filters without actually modifying the record?  Assuming that is technically
possible, then I could have On-Modify filters that do the
diagnosis:  Do a set-fields ZCompare = Firstname (from User Form).
Then another filter w/ qual: If ZCompare != DB.FirstName, set-fields
Firstname = ZCompare.  Then do the same thing with LastName via a filter
guide, I suppose.

Fred's suggestion of triggering updates on the source-side (User) actually
seems to make the most sense, although David suggests that might be a
performance problem.  If a single update to a user record has to go update
5,000 records across multiple forms, that might be a problem.  Although that
could be changed to just run off-peak anyway via an escalation (but now you
can't compare DB to TR and so you'd have to store previous values in extra
fields, or a set a generic sync flag field? Doh!).

I think I must just have a tendency to try to keep workflow self-contained
and not creep onto other forms.  Actually, that is not the only reason, I
just remembered that, quite often, we allow arbitrary input and then we want
to link it later.  For instance with the Problem Ticket we might take
Firstname and Lastname before there is ever a User account, so UserID is
NULL.  The only way to resolve these is to have an escalation attempt to
link it to the User record at a later time (via first and last name).  So if
Ben's suggestion works, that would be nice to avoid the excessive updates.
I'm also thinking of another workflow where a form waits for a record to
be created in another system.
Right now I have an escalation trigger a modify to perform a check to see
if that record has been created yet in a view form, and once it finds a
match it moves on to the next task.  Again that would be nice to avoid
modify updates for just a check.

I think I'm done rambling, thank you again I'll post back if I successfully

Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-09 Thread Brien Dieterle
I've got a lot of filters that do some normalization by setting some 
key fields via a lookup.  This might be a bad idea, but I generally 
create escalations that do some tidying up-- they just blast through all 
the records and update a trigger field to trigger the modify filters.  
Having all the records last modified by AR_ESCALATOR is starting to 
irritate some of my colleagues, so I'd like to stop doing this.  Any 
thoughts?  I've tried several ways to get an escalation to trigger the 
modify actions without actually modifying the record-- without any 
success.  I also definitely do not want to duplicate the code in the 
modify actions and copy them into the escalation.


Thanks!

Brien

___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are


Re: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

2012-02-09 Thread Grooms, Frederick W
If your normalization happens on every save of the record then are you having 
to run thru them on a schedule to update them because something somewhere else 
changed?

i.e.  If you are setting a Name field in Form AAA on save, are you trying to 
keep that Name field in sync with a Name somewhere else (like on Form BBB)?
I would look at trying to detect when the source of Name (Form BBB) is changed 
and force the related records (Form AAA) to update at that time.

Fred


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Brien Dieterle
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:13 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Escalation trigger filters without modifying records?

I've got a lot of filters that do some normalization by setting some 
key fields via a lookup.  This might be a bad idea, but I generally 
create escalations that do some tidying up-- they just blast through all 
the records and update a trigger field to trigger the modify filters.  
Having all the records last modified by AR_ESCALATOR is starting to 
irritate some of my colleagues, so I'd like to stop doing this.  Any 
thoughts?  I've tried several ways to get an escalation to trigger the 
modify actions without actually modifying the record-- without any 
success.  I also definitely do not want to duplicate the code in the 
modify actions and copy them into the escalation.

Thanks!

Brien

___
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org
attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: Where the Answers Are