Tasks

With a Task you can define complex and often time consuming manual operations, and publish the Task to Forms and Tables.

A Task is defined by:

Adding data sources used by actions as sources of information.
Adding actions used to perform different kinds of tasks.
Publish the Task to Forms and Tables.

Create a Task

Open Genus Studio.
In the Directory tree, click the Tasks folder, and then on the toolbar, click New.
In the Name box, type a name for the Task.
Optionally type a description in the Description box.
Optionally select a symbol in the Symbol box. A symbol can make it easier for users to understand the purpose of the Task. You can choose between different effect symbols.
Select the Enable Run on Application Server check box to disable effects with user interaction so that the task can be called by rules, agents, and web services.
Select the Enable Modify by Users without Version Deployment check box to allow users to directly modify specific effects which offer this functionality, like the Merge Data to a Document effect.
Follow the instructions described below for adding data sources and actions to the Task, and how to publish the Task.

Add Data Sources to a Task

Click the Data Sources tab.
Follow the instructions in the step-by-step procedure for adding a new data source.

Add Actions to a Task

Click the Actions tab.
Follow the step-by-step procedure for adding a new action.

Publish a Task

A publication is used to make the Task available to users in Forms and Tables. You can define one or more publications for a Task.

Click the Publications tab.
Click Add.
Optionally type a display name for the publication in the Display Name box. The display name is used in menus where the Task appears. If no name is given, the name of the Task is used as the display name.
Optionally type a screen tip for the publication in the Screen Tip box. The screen tip is used in menus where the Task appears. If the screen tip span more than one line, add an empty line after the first line to make the first line the title of the screen tip. The title appears in bold, and is separated from the body text with a thin line.
Optionally type a description explaining the purpose of the task in the Description box.
In the Choose the context for the publication section, if None is selected as context, the Task can only be run from a shortcut to the Task in the Navigation Pane. This is useful for Tasks which not operates in a context, for example an administrative Task executed on an irregular basis. If you want the Task to be available in all Forms and Tables where an object appears, select A data source as context. Select A form field if the Task only should be available from a specified field in a form. For example you can define a Task which gives the user the opportunity to register a new customer directly from a project. To restrict the Task to a specified table, select A table.
In the Command box, select a command to determine where the Task should appear in menus and on the toolbar. Select Run if you want the Task to appear in the Task Pane and in the Actions menu. If you have selected None as context, no other command is available. New and Open displays the Task in the New and Open menu respectively. If you want the Task to run when the user selects the default new or open command, click the Default check box. The choice regarding where you want the Task to appear should be based on the nature of the operation performed by the Task. The last two commands, Copy and Paste Special, are somewhat different. When a Task i published to Copy, the content of data sources representing a schema or a file are placed on the clipboard after the Task is run. Note that if the task contains any effects of type Copy Data to the Clipboard, the content of the data sources are not placed on the clipboard. That is, the data placed on the clipboard by effects are prioritized. If you publish the Task to Paste Special, the Task will appear in the Paste Special dialog box. The task will only appear in the dialog if a) the option Get object(s) from the clipboard is selected as data filter for one or more data sources and b) the clipboard contains data that can be used to populate these data sources. See copy and paste data for examples on how to publish a Task to Copy and Paste Special.
If you have chosen a context for the publication, the objects selected from the context are sent as input when running the task. These objects can be used for filtering your data sources, and gives you the opportunity to execute context sensitive actions. In the section Allow running this task when, choose if the task can run when a) The user has selected one object, b) The user has selected one or more objects or c) Always.
In the section Enabled, click Yes if the Task should be enabled for any object selected by the user. If the Task only should be enabled for objects satisfying certain criteria, click If this condition is true. To specify a condition, click Set Condition. The condition is evaluated before the Task is run. If the condition not is satisfied, the message typed in the Display this message if the condition not is satisified is displayed. Click No to temporarily disable the publication.
Click the Data Filters tab.
To specify a data filter, select a data source in the list and click Modify. Follow the instructions in the step-by-step procedure on how to filter data for a data source. If you have selected a context for the publication, the objects selected from the context are available from the data source named Context: , for example, Context: Customer.
Click the Advanced tab.
Refresh the data source the task is published to when the task has finished running.

Command	Menu	Enabled as default command
Run	Actions, Task Pane Actions Page	-
New	File - New	X
Open	File - Open	X
Report	Report, Task Pane Report Page	-
Send	File - Send	-
Reply	File - Reply	-
Forward	File - Forward	-
Mail To	CTRL+click on a mail address in a table or a form.	-
Copy	Edit - Copy	-
Paste Special	Edit - Paste Special	-

View the Execution History for a Task

Right-click the Task, and then in the shortcut menu, click Edit.
In the File menu, click History. The event history for the Task is shown.

You can also view the executions for a Task under the History entry in the navigation pane, by clicking the Execute History entry. Here it is possible to view the execution history for all Tasks.

The amount of information traced for each execution can be specified in the history setup for Task. To change this setting do the following:

In the File menu, click Properties.
Click the History tab.
Select the Save detailed execution trace in history check box if you want to trace more detailed information for each execution. By default this setting is not activated. Note that activating this setting may generate a large amount of data for each execution.