The one with the generic Workflow UI

[DirkLehmann]

As described in How to set up Generic Workflow Handling in Alloy, sometimes it might be necessary to add a bit more generic to the delivered Alloy workflow forms, in order to save implementation efforts.
One way of adding more generic to the Alloy forms is described in How to set up Generic Workflow Handling in Alloy.

In a summary:

• Use one or two predefined fields to add the relevant business object data in those fields (do this by using a custom Alloy Outbound Handler (see How to set up Generic Workflow Handling in Alloy for an example)).
• The data inside these fields is separated by some agreed separators. (here: colon and semicolon)
• Add a simple Lotus Script to the delivered (ERPApprovalWorkflow) form that parses the content (of the predefined fields) and extracts it in order to display the data in a HTML table

Let's see this in real life. After adding the custom Alloy Outbound Handler (here: Z_S_OSP_WF_PO1_CH_OB), the Alloy workflow note comes with two additional fields: WF_HEADER and WF_ITEMS.

The content in these two fields is separated by colons and semicolons, as described by How to set up Generic Workflow Handling in Alloy.
The below given Lotus Script code parses these fields, extracts the data and creates a HTML table with that data.

Sub DisplayReport(uidoc As NotesUIDocument) Dim tempdir$,  h_filename$, i_filename$, h_fn%, i_fn% Dim preview As Integer Dim i As Integer  ' Load data LoadHeaderData uidoc.Document LoadItemData uidoc.Document  ' Get NotesDocument Dim doc As NotesDocument Set doc = uidoc.Document  ' Check whether data was already loaded If( doc.hasItem("HeaderField") ) Then  Exit Sub End If  ' Create session Dim session As New NotesSession session.ConvertMime = False  ' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ' Print header  into stream Dim HFmime As NotesMimeEntity Dim HFmimeChild As NotesMimeEntity Dim HFmimeHeader As NotesMimeHeader Dim HFstream As NotesStream  Set HFmime = doc.CreateMIMEEntity("HeaderField")   Set HFmimeHeader = HFmime.CreateHeader("Content-Type") Call HFmimeHeader.SetHeaderVal("text/html")  Set HFmimeChild = HFmime.CreateChildEntity   Set HFstream = session.CreateStream  ' HTML Header for CSS Call HFstream.WriteText(|

|) Call HFstream.WriteText(||) Call HFstream.WriteText(||) Call HFstream.WriteText(||) ' The HTML table Call HFstream.WriteText(||) Forall headerIndex In header Call HFstream.WriteText(||) End Forall Call HFstream.WriteText(|

| & headerIndex.name & |

| & headerIndex.value & |

|) Call HFstream.WriteText(||) Call HFmimeChild.SetContentFromText(HFstream,"text/html",ENC_NONE) Call HFstream.Close() Call HFstream.Truncate ' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ' Print items to stream Dim IFmime As NotesMimeEntity Dim IFmimeChild As NotesMimeEntity Dim IFmimeHeader As NotesMimeHeader Dim IFstream As NotesStream Set IFmime = doc.GetMIMEEntity("ItemField") If( IFmime Is Nothing) Then Set IFmime = doc.CreateMIMEEntity("ItemField") End If Set IFmimeHeader = IFmime.CreateHeader("Content-Type") Call IFmimeHeader.SetHeaderVal("multipart/mixed") Set IFmimeChild = IFmime.CreateChildEntity Set IFstream = session.CreateStream ' HTML header for CSS Call IFstream.WriteText("") Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Call IFstream.WriteText(||) ' HTML table Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Dim hc As Integer Forall itemE In items If( hc = 0 ) Then Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Else Call IFstream.WriteText(||) End If For i = 1 To columns If( hc = 0 ) Then Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Else Call IFstream.WriteText(||) End If Next Call IFstream.WriteText(||) If( hc = 0 ) Then hc = hc +1 End If End Forall Call IFstream.WriteText(|

| & itemE(i) & |	| & itemE(i) & |

|) Call IFstream.WriteText(||) Call IFmimeChild.SetContentFromText(IFstream,"text/html",ENC_NONE) Call IFstream.Close() Call IFstream.Truncate Call doc.CloseMIMEEntities(True) Call doc.Save(True, False, False) End Sub Sub LoadHeaderData(doc As NotesDocument) Dim Token As String Dim s As String Dim TestHeaderString As String 'TestHeaderString = "Key1;Value1:Key2;Value2:Key3;Value3:" ' Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace ' Dim doc As NotesDocument ' Set doc = workspace.CurrentDocument.Document If( doc.HasItem("WF_HEADER") ) Then TestHeaderString = doc.GetItemValue("WF_HEADER")(0) Else TestHeaderString = doc.GetItemValue("WorkflowContainer00WF_HEADER")(0) End If ' TestHeaderString = doc.GetItemValue("WF_HEADER")(0) Token = "bla" Dim headerIndex As Integer headerIndex = 1 Do While Not Token = "" Token = Strtoken(TestHeaderString, ":", headerIndex) If Not (Token = "") Then s = Strtoken(Token, ";",1) header(headerIndex).name=s s = Strtoken(Token, ";",2) header(headerIndex).value=s headerIndex = headerIndex +1 End If Loop End Sub Sub LoadItemData(doc As NotesDocument) Dim Token As String Dim s As String Dim itemIndex As Integer Dim sIndex As Integer Dim TestItemString As String 'TestItemString = "Header1;Header2;Header3:Key2;Value21;Value22:Key3;Value31;Value32:" If( doc.HasItem("WF_ITEMS") ) Then TestItemString = doc.GetItemValue("WF_ITEMS")(0) Else TestItemString = doc.GetItemValue("WorkflowContainer00WF_ITEMS")(0) End If 'TestItemString = doc.GetItemValue("WF_ITEMS")(0) ' First data entry is table header ' Assumption is that no table header contains an empty string s = "bla" sIndex = 1 Token = Strtoken(TestItemString, ":", 1) If Not (Token = "") Then ' Get column number Do While Not s = "" s = Strtoken(Token, ";", sIndex) If Not ( s = "") Then columns = columns +1 sIndex = sIndex +1 End If Loop sIndex = 1 s = "bla" Redim itemEntry(1 To columns) As String ' Set size and clear array Do While Not s = "" s = Strtoken(Token, ";", sIndex) If Not ( s = "") Then itemEntry(sIndex) = s sIndex = sIndex +1 End If Loop items(1) = itemEntry Else ' Unable to parse table header...so we do not know how many columns we need Exit Sub End If itemIndex = 2 Dim i As Integer Do While Not Token = "" Token = Strtoken(TestItemString, ":", itemIndex) If Not (Token = "") Then Redim itemEntry(1 To columns) As String ' Set size and clear array For i = 1 To columns s = Strtoken(Token, ";", i) If Not ( s = "") Then itemEntry(i) = s End If Next items(itemIndex) = itemEntry itemIndex = itemIndex + 1 End If Loop End Sub

Place a call to the DisplayReport function in the QueryOpen part of your (ERPApprovalWorkflow) form (or better: make a copy of it and use the copy) to make sure the script is called, once the form is opened.

If the script is called the first time on a document, it reads out the WF_HEADER and WF_ITEMS data, and creates a HTML table out of it. The HTML data is stored in the Notes document, so that we don't need to parse the data a second time in case the form is opened again.

In order to display the header and item HTML data, two rich text fields are added to (ERPApprovalWorkflow) that have the same name as the stored HTML data fields in the Notes document.

For sure this example can be enhanced. E.g. it should be ensured that the separator characters colon and semicolon are escaped properly, the Lotus Script coding could be moved to the CustomAgent section of the Domino Workflow configuration and so on and so forth.