Automic Workload Automation

  • 1.  How to put GUI user dialogs in a step-by-step manner?

    Posted Mar 08, 2019 06:53 AM

    Our customer wishes to gather information to start a task e.g. job while beeing prompted (within the GUI) for several steps in a step-by-step (sequential) manner.

     

    Like:

    • Start Task (Workflow)
    • 1st dialog: Basic information (then click next)
    • 2nd dialog: Advanced information (then click next)
    • 3rd dialog: Final information (the click submit)
    • Job gets executed

     

    In Automic V9 we could realize something like this with a procedural set of READ blocks withing script. This worked nicely and we could use the values of the first block in the following block.

     

    Example script code (shows functionality only, variables used here are useless):

    :SET &JV_BATCH_NAME# = ""
    :SET &JV_MAIL_SEND# = ""

    ! Benutzerauswahl - Step 1
    :BEGINREAD "Schritt 1 von x"
    :  PRINT "Basic-Parameter"
    :  PRINT
    :  READ &JV_BATCH_NAME#, , 'Batchprogrammname', &JV_BATCH_NAME#
    :  PRINT "- Der Name des Batchprogramms wie in cobana.cfg definiert"
    :  PRINT
    :  READ &JV_MAIL_SEND#, 'Nein,Ja', 'Mail an mich?', &JV_MAIL_SEND#, "K"
    :  PRINT "- Soll das Ergebnis per Mail zugesandt werden?"
    :ENDREAD

    ! Benutzerauswahl - Step 2
    :BEGINREAD "Schritt 2 von x"
    :  PRINT "Advanced-Parameter"
    :  PRINT
    :  READ &JV_BATCH_NAME#, , 'Batchprogrammname', &JV_BATCH_NAME#
    :  PRINT "- Der Name des Batchprogramms wie in cobana.cfg definiert"
    :  PRINT
    :  READ &JV_MAIL_SEND#, 'Nein,Ja', 'Mail an mich?', &JV_MAIL_SEND#, "K"
    :  PRINT "- Soll das Ergebnis per Mail zugesandt werden?"
    :ENDREAD

    In Automic V12 (which we are now using) only the FIRST GUI dialog appears while the script gets executed. The second step of the dialog (step 2) is shown "in the background" within the Messages and Requests Pane and therefore not prominent for the user. The frontend GUI dialog experience gets broken here.

     

    Is this something we can configure?

     

    Also: PromptSets are not an alternative, while they are based on Variable objects only and we are unable to use the values of the previous step in the next PromptSet.

     

    Question:

    How can be build a "seamless" GUI user experience here which allows us to use variable values of the first step in the following steps?



  • 2.  Re: How to put GUI user dialogs in a step-by-step manner?

    Posted Mar 08, 2019 12:19 PM

    Regarding the idea of using a promptset, I wonder if the "dynamic" variable feature might help you solve your usecase?

     

    dynamic promptset 



  • 3.  Re: How to put GUI user dialogs in a step-by-step manner?

    Posted Mar 11, 2019 09:07 AM

    Dynamic prompt sets can handle many such cases. It’s also possible to define prompt sets on a sequence of tasks within a workflow. Make sure they have ‘generate at runtime’ turned on. Otherwise they won’t be able to read prompt set variables set by previous tasks.