Use Global Functions to Define Change Order Entry and Exit Criteria

You can use global functions when you write Groovy scripts using the expression builder in Application Composer.

You can use global functions to define the entry and exit criteria for change orders. Here are a few best practices, recommendations, and examples, including:

• Best practices for working with attributes in global functions.
• How to use the entry and exit criteria to populate approvers.
• Examples that show how global functions can be used with item rules.

Best Practices for Working with Attributes in Global Functions

The best practices while working with attributes in global functions are applicable to:

• Validating attributes
• Validating whether the change tabs and change affected item tabs have content (Has Content)

Note: The entry criteria are applicable only for approval and open statuses, while the entry and exit criteria are applicable for interim approval status. Hence, use the open or interim approval status while validating use cases.

Here are the best practices applicable for validating attributes:

• Ensure that the validation is successful and doesn't time out. Test the validation with increments of 10 attributes at a time. If the validation takes longer than 10 seconds it will time out.

• Use the Limit parameter to limit the number of fields that are fetched for a REST call.

  Syntax: ?limit=<number>

  The value of the Limit parameter is set to 25, in case you don't specify a value for this parameter. If you manually specify a limit value, it will fetch that many records. If you've only a few records, don't specify a high value for the Limit parameter because memory is allocated based on the Limit parameter.

• Check the attribute values of the change extensible flexfields, item operational attributes, and item extensible flexfields.
  • Limit the number of attributes to 10 while validating the values.
  • Use the configured objects to perform validations ahead of time. The configured object stores the result, and you use the global function to access the results. This global function is invoked as part of entry and exit criteria.
  • Use the query parameters to filter the data rather than iterating through all the attachments. For example, if you're trying to check if an affected item has a certain attachment category, attachment category=Secured Attachment, then you can build your query URL in the following way:/productChangeOrdersV2/<changeId>/child/changeOrderAffectedObject/<itemUniqId>/child/changeOrderAffectedItemAttachment?q=CategoryCode="Secured Attachment".

• Validating whether the tabs on the change and it's affected item have content (Has Content).
  • When working on a "has content" use case, check the array size. If the array size is greater than zero, don't iterate through the result set. For example, you can check the array size for an affected item that has AMLs.

Use Entry and Exit Criteria to Add Approvers

You can define the entry and exit criteria in the Groovy script to add approvers to a workflow. Let's say you want to add approvers based on certain change header attributes. Set the change extensible flexfield attribute Team to Packaging, then add the Packaging_Role attribute as approver to interim approval or approval status.

Here's how you define the entry and exit criteria to add approvers:

1. Create a configured object that will evaluate Team to change order extensible flexfield attribute and returns the role to be added as an approver.
2. Execute the script on a scheduled process (Scheduled Custom Groovy Object Function) to populate the result in a configured attribute.
3. Configure entry or exit criteria from Interim Approval 1 to Interim Approval 2 or Interim Approval to Approval that invokes a global function and populates the approvers.