Process

This article is about a user interface element on a form in Resco mobile apps. For information about server processes on Resco Cloud, see server processes. For information about mirroring business process flows from Dynamics to Resco Mobile CRM, see Business Process Flow.

A process is a component on Resco mobile apps that you can add to your forms. The main purpose of a process is to guide app users through a series of steps (i.e., through a process). It is designed for entities that include a state/status field (or other picklists/option sets), for example, the opportunity entity.

Processes are created and managed in Woodford. They are defined within app projects. Once a process is defined, you must add it to an entity form.

Creating a process

1. Edit an app project.
2. Select Components > Process from the Project menu.
3. Click New, name the process, and click OK.
4. Select an entity and a field that governs the process steps.
   
5. Optionally, configure the process:
   • Click the arrows to reorder the steps.
   • Select a step and enter a step description.
   • Select Hide From Process to exclude a step from the process. You cannot use the process to switch the record to this state.
   • Click the flags to mark one or more states as final. All these states are grouped in the app; app users can then select from the list. You can also enter the label and description for the final step.
6. Click Save & Close.

Adding a process to a form

1. Edit an app project.
2. Select an entity from the Project menu.
3. Click Show UI to display the list of views, forms, and charts.
4. Edit a form.
5. From the Tabs pane, drag Process Flow to the Designer pane and select one of the processes that you have defined for this entity, then click OK.
6. Select the process and click Move Up and Move Down to reorder the content of the form. Often, the process control looks best on the top or on the bottom of the form.
7. Save everything and publish the project.

On a form, the process behaves like a standard form tab, with some non-standard default settings. Select a process on the form and you can tweak the behavior on the Properties pane. For example, you can enable a header for the process block or make it collapsible.

Using process in the app

In the app, on a form with the process function enabled you can now see all stages through which a process has to go in the correct order. Tap the Mark as Complete or Mark as Current Stage buttons to move through stages.

When you proceed to the next step, this actually changes the value of the status parameter (or another parameter that governs the process stages), making the form dirty. You can use On Change rule to trigger additional steps.

Updating the process component

Resco may release updates for the process component; even between regular app releases.

1. Select Process from the Project menu.
2. Click Get Latest Version and select which version of the component do you want to download: Production or Beta; then click Get Latest. In general, use production, unless you're beta testing or you receive this instruction from Resco support. This affects all of the process components in your project.
3. Don't forget to publish the project to make the changes available for client devices.

Localization

You can use Localization to translate some of UI strings.

• Use the string Process.Button.Current to change the label of the Mark as Current Stage button.
• Use the string Process.Button.Completed to change the label of the Mark as Completed button.
• Use the string Process.Button.Cancel to change the label of the Cancel button.
• Use the string Process.Button.UnknownValue to change the label of the warning message "Value is not defined as process step value."
• The descriptions of the states or steps can be localized. When defining the process in Woodford, use a localization string as your step description, for example lead.qualified.description.

Process and rich text: technology change in release 16.0

In release 16.0, we have changed how process flow and rich text editor form tabs are integrated with the app. Before this release, these two form tabs used to be implemented as iframes. I.e., their code resided in the Offline HTML section of the app projects. Going forward, these functions have become an inherent part of the apps; custom code in the offline HTML is no longer necessary.

Optional: remove unused scripts

After 16.0, scripts for process flow and rich text editor in the Offline HTML section of the project are no longer used and can be deleted.

1. Edit an app project.
2. Select Offline HTML from the project menu.
3. Check the folders ProcessControl and RichTextEditor. Verify that they don't contain any custom development that you don't want to lose. Optionally, back up these folders.
4. Select the folder(s) that you no longer need and click Delete.
5. Save all changes and publish the project.

Deleting the files makes the initial synchronization faster.

Tip	Don't delete the files if you upgraded to Woodford 16.0, but you need to support apps 15.3.2 or earlier. See the next section for more information.

Publishing with an older Publish Version

If you publish your project with Woodford 16.0 or later, apps older than 16.0 won't be able to synchronize. In such situations, the recommended solution is to publish with an older Publish Version. However, in this particular case, you need to perform some extra steps.

1. Remove the rich text or process flow control from the form.
   
2. Instead, add an iframe tab.
3. As URL, select one of the following. You need to provide a custom parameter at the end of the URL.
   • file://ProcessControl/ProcessControl.html?name=myProcess
   • file://RichTextEditor/RichTextEditor.html?field=address1_city

   For process flow, enter the name of the process. For rich text, enter the internal name of the field.

If the ProcessControl or RichTextEditor folder is not available in your offline HTML, you must get it from our GitHub:

• https://github.com/Resconet/Process/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
• https://github.com/Resconet/RichTextEditor/archive/refs/heads/master.zip

Tip	You can drag the zip file into the Offline HTML window; Woodford will unpack the archive. Then rename the folder as needed.