Select capabilities of the user defined screen (Web Service Prompt > Web Services tab) - HxGN EAM - 11.07.01 - Feature Briefs - Hexagon

HxGN EAM Web Service Prompts

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English
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HxGN EAM
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Feature Briefs
HxGN EAM Version
11.7.1

The second step in creating your web service prompt based user defined screen is to select the web services required. As previously mentioned, it is possible to create a user defined screen that employs more than one web service.

Users do not have to know the web service names to use this tab. The web service can be found if you know the HxGN EAM™ Screen, Tab, and Action (insert, update, or delete) needed for the prompt. Once a Screen is selected the system enables the Tab and Action fields that are valid for the screen. The Web Service lookup will always consider the Screen, Tab, and Action selected when displaying its contents, so use these fields to narrow your web service choices down before making your selection.

If you know the web service name, enter the value into the Web Service field. The system will retrieve the related Screen, Tab, and Action. Now that the web service is identified the system has enough information to know the field selection choices you will have on the Fields tab.

Not all screens (web services) within the system are available for use with web service prompts. Below are the general guidelines in determining if a screen is available:

The system displays the screens for system delivered list view / record view screens and some stand-alone record view screens.

BSCOMM (Comments pop-up/tab) will also be displayed so the user can insert/update/delete record Comments.

Customer created screens (Parent value IS NULL) will not be available.

See Important notes.

Most web service names are descriptive enough to expose their main purpose. The web service name, by default, will be displayed in the selected web services section on the user defined screen. For example, see Web service prompts on page . The web service selected is MP0037_AddActivity_001. The system, by default, will show AddActivity as the section title for the web service on the user defined screen. The Screen Section Title field is available should you prefer to provide a more meaningful section title. In this case, the section title will be Add Work Order Activity when the user defined screen is displayed.

One other point of interest here is the Process Group field. Essentially, this field determines the order in which the selected web services are displayed on the user defined screen. In addition, this is the order in which the web services are processed into the database when a record is saved. These things are only relevant if multiple web services are used for a single prompt. Referring to the grid on the Web Service Prompt page, you can see the web services will be displayed and processed in the following order: add asset equipment, add comment, and add equipment structure. The system will blindly follow the defined processing order whether it makes sense or not. So, make sure the web services are ordered in a logical fashion. For example, if you create a prompt that will create a work order, create an activity for the work order, then book labor for the work order activity then you must create the work order first, create the activity for the work order second, then book labor for the work order activity last. Therefore, the create work order process group must be the lowest number, followed by the create activity web service, and so on.

The default values for Process Group will follow the same standard used elsewhere in the system for line numbering (that is, work order activity, PO line, etc.) and will come from the INCRLINO installation parameter setting. These values must be unique per prompt and can only be changed in insert mode.

The last role the Process Group plays is that it helps to determine the Sequence value for the controlling organization field in each web service selected for the prompt. Let’s back up just a moment. You have probably noticed that most screens within HxGN EAM™ contain an at least one organization field. This field determines privileges on the screen and plays a part in what values are displayed in lookups, etc. It is sometimes called the ‘controlling org.’ and in some cases, you cannot enter any data on the screen unless the controlling organization is populated. A major reason for this is to help ensure data integrity at save time. Imagine the user experience if the controlling organization was removed from these screens or could be hidden.

When administrators are building web service prompts, the system does not force them to select certain fields, but the system does automatically add the controlling organization field to the Fields tab whenever a web service is saved and a controlling organization exists for the web service. This is done to protect the user, as much as possible, from getting themselves into trouble by not adding the organization to their prompts. All other fields must be added manually by the user on the Fields tab.

The prompt being created in this example and illustrated by the 3 grid records on the Web Service Prompt page can be used by field personnel during initial loading of assets into HxGN EAM™. The Add Asset Equipment web service is used to collect basic equipment information including the asset code and description. The Add Comments web service will provide the means to enter relevant details in text format concerning the asset and/or its surroundings. Finally, the Add Equipment Structure web service is necessary for the user to place the new equipment into the appropriate place in the hierarchy. This business case will be the basis for this paper.

  • Web Services cannot be selected until a web service prompt record is created on the record view.

  • When inserting a web service record to mimic functionality normally performed on a record view within the system (that is, create assets, update work orders, etc.) the Tab field should be left blank.

  • In update mode, only the Screen Section Title is editable for web service records.

  • Once confirming your desire to delete a web service record, the system will also delete any related detail records (that is, Fields and Retrieved Fields tabs).

  • It should be noted that update and delete web services are available as well; however, we will not get into these in any detail at this point.

  • If you want the ability to add comments for a record using your prompt, you will need to select BSCOMM (Comments pop-up) as the Screen value. Because the Comments pop-up is a generic pop-up that can be used to insert/update/delete Comments for many different entities and records, the user may need to supply the necessary key field information when entering Comment data on the web service prompt engine.

  • Addresses, Documents, eRecords, and Translations tabs will not be available.

  • If needed, the web service prompt, along with its fields can be downloaded as an excel file by clicking on the Create Import Utility Template.