How To Use Global Variables

As described above, some steps can reference fields called Predefined Values. In addition to referencing an ad hoc constant value (e.g., the letter Y), you can also reference a global variable in such a field value. A global variable is used when you want to reference system data. The following global variables exist:

%PARM-<name> is the value of a parameter of that name passed in to the application when launched via the standard system URL. Refer to Launching A Script When Starting the System for more information on these parameters.
%PARM-NOT-SET is to be used to compare against %PARM-<name> parameters to check if the parameter has been set or not when the application was launched. A parameter that has not been set would test as equal to this global variable. It is recommended to test parameters against this global variable before using them for the first time.
%CONTEXT-PERSONID is a constant that contains the ID of the current person
%CONTEXT-ACCOUNTID is a constant that contains the ID of the current account
%CONTEXT-PREMISEID is a constant that contains the ID of the current premise
%BLANK is a constant that contains a blank value, i.e. no value
%SPACE is a constant that contains a single space value
%CURRENT-DATE is the current date (as known by the browser, not the server)
%SAVE-REQUIRED is a flag that contains an indication of whether the data on a page has been changed (and this requires saving). You may want to interrogate this flag to force a user to save their work before executing subsequent steps. This flag will have a value of TRUE or FALSE.
%NEWLINE is a constant that contains a new line character (carriage return). Upon substitution, a line break is inserted in the resultant text.

Note: The constant %NEWLINE does not have the desired effect when the resultant text is HTML. For example, a step's text and prompt strings. This is because HTML ignores special characters such as new lines. Refer to How To Use HTML Tags And Spans In Text to learn how to cause a line break in an HTML text.

In addition, if an Invoke Function step returns an error, the following global variables contain information about the error:

%ERRMSG-CATEGORY and %ERRMSG-NUMBER contain the unique identifier of the error message number.
%ERRMSG-TEXT contains the brief description of the error.
%ERRMSG-LONG contains the complete description of the error.