From a designer's point of view, publishing actions expands the scope of what you can do with a flow of work and enhances your ability to control that flow. Teamed with autolaunching, publishing actions allows you to focus or limit user-access to commands, thereby controlling the flow of work. By simplifying and automating multistep tasks, you improve the security of your system and reduce the chance of user error. Actions can incorporate functions, @commands, and LotusScript. Notes also supplies a number of simple actions, such as Move to Folder, which allow you to incorporate useful actions in your form design without programming in LotusScript.
For information on actions, see "Overview of Automation."
When an action executes
On the Advanced (NotesFlow Publishing) tab of the Action Properties box, you can specify what happens when an action runs. Select "Close OLE object and return to Notes" to close the object, save any changes made during the OLE session, and return to Notes. Select "OLE object remains open" if you want the focus to remain with the OLE object. This property is useful if users need to choose more than one action before returning to Notes.
When designing actions, keep in mind the state of the application when returning to Notes. For example, if you use the autolaunch feature with an action, decide whether you want users to return to Notes, whether you want the Notes window hidden, whether users are in a document or a view, and whether the document has been saved or is new. Write documentation or field help in the form to provide guidance to users.
"Bring document window to front" property
On the Advanced (NotesFlow Publishing) tab of the Action Properties box, choose the property "Bring document window to front" if you want the focus to return to Notes without closing the OLE object. By shifting the focus back to Notes, you provide the opportunity for user-input in Notes. When you use this property, remember that the OLE object has not been saved, unless you explicitly saved the object as part of the action. Therefore, you may have to provide a way for users to return to the object to save it.
Note The "Bring document window to front" property applies only when the document window in Notes has not been hidden.
To publish an action
1. Open the form.
2. Choose View - Action pane to display the Action pane.
3. Double-click the action you want to publish.
4. Choose Design - Action Properties.
5. Click the Advanced tab.
6. Select "Publish Action with OLE object."
7. Select a property that controls what happens after a user chooses an action.
8. (Optional) Select "Bring document window to front" to change the default setting.
9. Close and save the form.
For information about creating an action, see "Adding Automation to Applications."
Note If actions do not get published even after you select "Publish action with OLE object," make sure Notes/FX ™ 2.0 is enabled. Choose Design - Form Properties and click the Defaults tab. The "Disable Field Exchange" check box should be deselected.
Examples
A Word Pro document needs to be routed for approval. The Notes form you create has an embedded Word Pro document set to autolaunch when edited and an action called "Send to Next Reviewer." When a user opens the Notes document in Edit mode, the Word Pro document automatically launches. After reviewing the Word Pro document, the user selects the Send to Next Reviewer action from the Action menu. This action sends the Notes document to the next reviewer and closes the object.
To provide other routing options, you can add the actions "Ready for Next Reviewer," "Return to Previous Reviewer," and "Archive Document" to the Notes form.
See Also