Create PDF report by button press without data change trigger

[malik373]

Is it possible to create a pdf report without having to trigger it thru making data changes by just using a single button press and on demand.

[WillowMobileSys · Accepted solution]

No.  Bots are triggered either by some row change OR as a Scheduled Bot.

Having said that, you can achieve what you want by introducing a dedicated column to trigger the Bot - say, for instance, a column named [Create_PDF?].  Then create your button action to simply set the value of this column to TRUE.  Then set your criteria in the Bot to run when [Create_PDF?] = TRUE

There is one "gotcha" to address.  One might think that you can reset the [Create_PDF?] flag to FALSE as a step from inside the Bot.  But within the window of time that the flag is TRUE, it is possible that other row updates occur and since the flag is TRUE will trigger the Bot again unexpectedly.

To correct for this, you want to create your button action as a GROUP.  First action sets the flag to TRUE.  A second action immediately resets the flag back to FALSE.  Because these are done in two different actions, they are sent as two different row updates to the server and will be processed in order and no row updates can occur in between.  The first edit will trigger the Bot while the second edit resets the flag preventing any further triggering.  

I hope this helps.  Please ask if anything is unclear!

[malik373]

That helped alot and gave confirmation to what I've been thinking. I appreciate your help.