Action setup via JSON

[Bellave_Jayaram]

I understand that giving us an API to manipulate the app definition in the editor is probably not on the cards but there are many use cases for this type of editor feature and this is just one that I would love to have.

I want to be able to import a JSON file to set up actions. Here is how I see it might work:

Where it says Add New Action in the Actions tab, I would have an Add “New Action via JSON file” button.

The JSON file contents could look like this:

  Action_Add {
    "Action_Name": "Set related cols in Products",
    "Target_Table": "PRODUCTS",
    "Action_Type": "Data: set the values of some columns in this row",
    "Set_Columns": {
      "PatientName": "[OrderID].[PatientName]",
      "PONum":"[PONum]+1"
    },
    "Appearance": {
      "Display name": "Setup Billing",
      "Action_icon": "paper-plane",
      "Prominence": "Display prominently",
    },
    "Behavior": {
      "Condition": "true",
      "Needs_confirmation": "false",
      "Confirmation_message": "",
    }
  }

I would expect that we could import multiple actions contained in a single file.

How about it? Thanks for considering.

[GreenFlux]

Or better yet, what if the editor buttons for Add Action & Add Workflow had an option to import existing Actions/Workflows from other apps? Clicking import would bring up a dialog of existing apps, then a menu of actions or workflows to import.

@Bellave_Jayaram would that work for your purposes? Or do you think that should be a separate feature request?

I can see the JSON import being useful for bulk import, but I think you’re right about it ‘not being in the cards’. I think the UI import menu would be more likely to go from request to feature.

[Bellave_Jayaram]

Sure, your idea is good and would work in some cases but not all. I was proposing my idea in the broader context of developing external adjunct tools (that could work with app meta-models) to automate some things and help speed up interactions within the editor.

[aeastham]

It would be great if we could edit columns in Data Tables in a similar way.

I’ve just had a case where I had to set “Editable If” on over 50 columns to prevent them being changed if the “Customer Signature” filed was not blank. It took over an hour. I’m sure I will have to modify these at some time in the future too.

It would have been great if I could have written a script to do this. Your JSON format would be just fine for this.

[Bellave_Jayaram]

@aeastham, thanks for posting your use case - I agree that we can remove some of the drudgery of working with the editor if we could avail such a feature.

Could you kindly vote for this feature so it gets more traction? Thanks