Require attachment for catalog item in Service Portal

[mspeirs]

We are preparing to make Service Portal live and going through our service catalog items to make sure everything works ok. One challenge we have is being able to require an attachment before submission. We want to do this always for some forms and conditionally on others. We were using one solution that relied on the DOM but we know that functionality is restricted in the Service Portal. I have seen some solutions but I wanted something simpler that required fewer modifications of OOB code or widgets and would be flexible and easy to reuse. What I came up with is not a perfect solution but it works for now.

We have a global UI Script with reusable functions for catalog items. It prevents having to maintain functions in multiple places and makes them available for all catalog items. Lets name this global UI Script GlobalCatalogItemFunctions. This script needs to be included in your Service Portal via the Theme. Go to Service Portal > Portals and select your portal. Then click the reference icon next to the Theme field to go to its record. There is a related list called JS Includes. Create a new one (Source: UI Script) and set the UI Script to GlobalCatalogItemFunctions. You can set the display name to that as well. Save. The functions in the UI Script will now be available for use in Catalog client scripts. This is the function I am using for getting the attachment count:

UI Script: GlobalCatalogItemFunctions

function getSCAttachmentCount() {

  var length;

  try {

  length = angular.element("#sc_cat_item").scope().attachments.length;

  } catch(e) {

  length = -1;

  }

  return length;

}

This is an onSubmit script I am using for a catalog item:

function onSubmit() {

  try { //Works in non-portal ui

  var attachments = document.getElementById('header_attachment_list_label');

  if (attachments.style.visibility == 'hidden' || attachments.style.display == 'none' ) {

  alert('You must attach the completed form before submitting this request.');

  return false;

  }

  } catch(e) { //For Service Portal

  var count = getSCAttachmentCount();

  if(count <= 0) {

  alert('You must attach the completed form before submitting this request.');

  return false;

  }

  }

}

Notice in the onSubmit script I used a try/catch block and the first part works in the full UI but not in the Service Portal. In the portal, the document.getElementById... part will not work, but our catch statement performs the method that will work in the portal by calling the getSCAttachmentCount() function which is in our included ui script. That function accesses the angular scope of the catalog item which has an array of the attachments. We just want the count so we use the length attribute. There's no guarantee this will work in the future but for now it will get the job done. It would be nice if there were a function to get attachment information out-of-the-box.

For reference:

Is it possible to require a user to add an attachment before submitting a catalog item?

Catalog service making Mandatory Attachment both application and SP

Service Portal UI Script or Reusable functions in Client Scripts

[jimbobtx]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! That theme was the missing piece of the puzzle for me.

[Allen Andreas]

Be sure if you haven't yet and if you don't mind, to mark his post as "Helpful". This rewards him with a few points and also as users needing help, we tend to look for the most helpful posts if they aren't fully marked as "Correct" so this helps everyone out.

Thanks!

[jimbobtx]

Already did, thanks!

[Brian Lancaster]

I just ran into an issue with the UI Script.  It seems that it will go into the catch(e) section if someone is editing the item from their cart in Service Portal.  So this causes it to return -1 which is less then 0 so the error gets thrown even thought it should not.  Just wanted to make everybody aware.

[Goran WitchDoc]

I did a video if another way to just include it in the existing widgets:

Forcing mandatory attachments on Catalog items - YouTube

//Göran