Customizing Approval Summarizer Views, Related Lists

[mfasko]

I've spent an hour in a rabbit hole more than once and was never able to find this documented anywhere so I figured I'd put it out here.

In this latest example we were tasked with adding a Related List to the Change Request's Approval Summary at the bottom of the Approval record. The wiki does tell you that the Approval Summarizer is a UI Macro, approval_summarizer, and that its job is to take the table for which the Approval in question is for and search to see if there is another custom UI Macro matching that naming standard: approval_summarizer + [table_name]. So in our case the Approval Summarizer looks to see if approval_summarizer_change_request exists as a UI Macro. If it does, it invokes it, if not, it invokes the default and you get all the fields defined there.

We had already created a custom UI Macro for Change Request, so I looked in that file and saw that it is loading a custom View we created of the Change Request form: change_custom. So like any View you can just use the Personalize -> Form Layout right-click option from within a Change Request, select the change_custom option in the View select, and add/remove fields as you wish.

However, in our case we wanted to add another Related List (we already had Change Tasks and Projects there). So I went to Personalize -> Related Lists from within the Change Request, changed the View select to change_custom, and bam! there's the Change Tasks and Projects Related Lists showing in the right pane. Seemed like a good sign. I added the new Related List to the right pane and saved. I reloaded a Change Approval Request record I had opened in another browser and the new Related List wasn't there...

[rabbit hole]

I eventually went back to the Personalize -> Form Layout screen to see if maybe the View wasn't correct, added a field and it showed up no problem. Went back to that same screen to remove said field and realized that the Change Tasks and Project (different color text) options were listed at the bottom! I'm guessing because it is being rendered in the macro and displayed as an Embedded List rather than a true Related List it is added to summary using the regular form layout versus the Personalize -> Related Lists option I had imagined it would be. Explains the different color text as well. The fact that Change Tasks/Projects were listed as part of that View's Related Lists was the Red Herring, and most likely due to the same failure leading to the same rabbit hole, rinse, repeat, TL;DR, etc., ......

Hopefully that saves someone else from the same rabbit hole!

[namita_oberoi]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for this wonderful article. I configured exactly the same way and it worked in Eureka. We had 3 embedded lists on the form. But after we upgraded to Fuji, 2 (Approvals and Change Tasks) of the 3 embedded lists are not coming up on the form. Could you please suggest something.

Thanks in advance...