Question

Document Approvals

  • 2 January 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 576 views

Userlevel 5
Badge +10

Hello,

We will soon start using doc management with approval templates in Apps 8.

Are you aware of anything in IFS that shows the approval status on the document itself?

As far as we can see, the doc revision card shows this, but there is nothing to show on the document itself once it is printed / downloaded to your PC.

Any suggestions would be welcomed 

Regards

Shaun


3 replies

Userlevel 6
Badge +14

Hi @SHAUN_KERSLAKE  This should be possible with Macros. A macro is often associated with commands such as Print, Edit, View, Check In/Out, etc. Normally, the editing/viewing application is started, the macros are executed, and then normal work with the document can be performed. Macros are often used for inserting document headers, frames, updating the document with information from the database, and more.

There are pre-defined various attributes you can use in your Macro code and if you think they are not enough, you can write methods to get custom attributes as well. Check the F1 Docs for more information.

Hope this helps :) 

Userlevel 5
Badge +10

@amila Thank you for your reply. 

Do you have experience yourself of developing macros that add approval watermarks or some other identifier to documents? 

I notice in the F1 it mentions VBScript and JavaScript are the programming languages available for writing macros neither of which we have experience of.

Userlevel 7
Badge +30

@amila Thank you for your reply. 

Do you have experience yourself of developing macros that add approval watermarks or some other identifier to documents? 

I notice in the F1 it mentions VBScript and JavaScript are the programming languages available for writing macros neither of which we have experience of.

Document macros can certainly do this (this is actually what macros are primarily for), but it requires some knowledge in writing VBScript code. All can be found on the internet, of course. I recommend you start with a super simple macro that just opens a message box, it should be available in the documentation. And read all the documentation you can find on “macros”. Once you have the message box example working, it’s just a matter of extending it with more code to add a header or watermark or whatever you want to do. It might take some time if you are new to this, of course… If you need help, I am sure IFS support can help you with this (billable, probably...), or some of IFS’ partners might be able to.

If you have access to openIFS, our old “community”, you can still access some old information about macro development:

https://open.ifsworld.com/wiki/Wiki%20Pages/Document%20Management%20-%20Macros.aspx

(you need an account there, not sure if they allow people in any longer or not)

In IFS demo database (“RACE”) there are some example macros that are more advanced and which can be enhanced to do this. Not sure if you have access to that, but certainly IFS Support should have.

Good luck!

 

Reply