Adding a Reference Process to Auto-Populate Data

Unifier populates the data in some pickers with a reference process form. Reference processes are necessary for any form that uses BP or line item pickers. Users use these pickers to call data from another—a referenced—business process. The reference establishes a link between the records (for example, an invoice record to a purchase order). Because of this link, record to record, you can populate one form with data from other forms.

To make these pickers effective, you must connect both forms by "mapping" a field on the picker to one on the referenced form. In operation, the picker will point to the referenced form and use the values in the fields you specify to display data on the picker. After the reference link is created, you can use the referenced form to populate any data elements that the referenced and current form have in common.

Likewise, if a form includes a line item picker, the user can select specific line items from a referenced form. To make a line item picker effective, you must specify what line items the user can select from the referenced form. After you do this, the referenced line items will automatically populate those line item fields that the referenced and the current form have in common.

To specify a reference process or line item for a picker:

  1. Open the form and click Reference Processes in the left Navigator.
  2. Click the New button. The Select Business Process window opens.
  3. From the menu, select the form to which you want the picker or line item to point.
  4. Click OK. The Reference Process window opens.
  5. To complete the General tab, use the information in the first table below.
  6. Click the Query tab.

    Note: Unifier allows you to select one Data Element, only: Status. No other Data Elements are available for selection.

  7. Click the Add button. The Query Condition window opens.

    Use the information in the second table below to complete the Query tab.

  8. Click OK.

In this field:

Do this:

Name

Enter a name for the reference process.

Description

(Optional) Enter a description of the purpose of the picker in referencing this process.

Destination Element

Select the data element (the picker) you want to populate. The list displays the fields on the upper form of the BP you are creating.

For example, if you are creating an invoice form and you want to link the PO picker to a Base Commit, choose the PO picker.

Reference Process

Shows the name of the form you selected in Step 3. This is the source from which the data will come.

Source Element

Select the field on the referenced form that you want to link to. The list displays the fields on the upper form of the BP you are referencing.

Note: The field names of the source and destination fields do not have to match, but the data definitions supporting these fields must match.

Location Element

Select the shell where the form you are pointing to resides.

Show reference value as a hyperlink

Select the check box to display the field name as a hyperlink. Users can use this hyperlink to open the referenced form from the detail form you are designing. For example, if an invoice references a purchase order contract, the name of the referenced purchase order will appear as a hyperlink on the invoice form and allow users to open the PO record.

Allow Line Item Referencing

Select the check box to allow users to refer to specific line items on a detail form.

For Destination Element, select the data element (line item) you want to populate. The list displays the fields on the upper or detail form you are designing.

For Source Element, select the field in the referenced form. The value in this field will populate the line item field on the form you are designing. The list displays the fields on the upper or detail form you are referencing.

Source Referencing Element

Select the field or picker on the referenced line item that should be updated with the ID of the record from which the line item was selected.

At runtime, when a user uses a BP Line Item Picker to select a line item and sends the record forward, the source referencing element will be updated to show the ID of the record from which the user picked the line item.

Note: You cannot use a BP Line Item Picker in an Activity Attribute Form.

At runtime, if the user deletes the line item that updated this source referencing element, or clears the line item picker, the system will clear this field.

Data Element

Select the field you want to appear on the picker.

Condition

Select the condition the field must meet to be included on the picker.

Value

Click the Select button and choose the value the data in the field must show in order to be included on the picker.

Connecting Records in the Same Business Process

Some business circumstances require that records in the same business process be connected hierarchically. For example, a master lease may need to be connected to sub-leases, or a master work order may need to be connected to work order line items. In uDesigner, you can design a business process to create this hierarchy (parent record to child record) by using the Reference Process feature. Using this feature, you can design a business process that will reference itself for the purpose of populating the BP pickers and line item pickers that a user can use to create the records and, along with them, the hierarchy.

As an example, you could create a data element for the BP form, such as a check box, that users could check to indicate that the record they are creating is a master record. Records that should be "child" records to the master would use a BP picker to reference the master record and a line item picker to display the records that were extracted by the reference process query.

To connect records within the same business process, create a reference process using the instructions above, under To specify a reference process or line item for a picker.


Last Published Monday, June 3, 2024