Greeting Everyone!
Can any one please advise on how to generate a dynamic report based on certain variables e.g from date 1 to date2 with a specific region like north, south, etc. in IPA Designer flow.
Thanks in advance,
HD
There are a couple of ways to do this, depending on what sort of "parameters" you are looking for. Are you looking for a way for a user to trigger a flow based on a form, or are you looking for a way for an admin to trigger different workunits with different parameters manually?
The easiest way is to create a Process Trigger that includes variables for your parameters, then referencing those parameters within your flow. They are referenced just like any other flow variable, but you won't see them in the variable select list, so you'll have to manually enter them. I usually name them something like "prmDate1" and then assign them to a "real" flow variable in the start node for ease of selecting them (and testing in Designer). The disadvantage to this approach is that the trigger variables have to be updated in the PfiTrigger business class before starting the trigger if they need to be changed, and this typically isn't available to end-users.
The second option is to create a service (PfiService) that is called by an ActionRequest that is triggered by an ActionForm. The ActionRequest would call the Service and pass the required variable values to the variables defined in the Service, and the service would be associated with the flow. As above, the service variables would be referenced just like flow variables. The advantage is that end users could be given access to the ActionForm and enter the required parameters.
This second option requires quite a bit of setup, and is really beyond the scope of a blog posting. It requires pretty extensive understanding of ConfigurationConsole, not to mention IPA Flows, Services, ActionRequests, and ActionRequest Forms. It is not for the feint of heart. This really works best for very specific tasks related to a specific business class - like Hire, Term, etc. If you want to go that route, I'd recommend examining the flows, services, actionrequests, and actionrequest forms related to an existing process that calls an IPA flow and trying to mimic it.
I hope this is somewhat helpful - though I'm sure it's not what you were hoping to hear. Maybe some other folks will chime in with suggestions.
Good Luck!
Kelly
Hi Kelly, thanks for the quick response.
Basically what I try to do is to generate a dynamic report with a csv output based on certain variables. I was able to generate the regular csv report. However, I am having an issue of generating a dynamic report in which users want to run it on demand where they can manually enter parameters for dates and region. Your "option one" seems to fit for the dynamic report but I am unclear on this part "The disadvantage to this approach is that the trigger variables have to be updated in the PfiTrigger business class before starting the trigger if they need to be changed, and this typically isn't available to end-users."
Do you have a sample flow that does the above function, can you please share?
Thanks again!