Passing Variables to Task "Description" Field

ahsan4 · ‎04-25-2016

Hello All,

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday! I needed to reach out to the community for some assistance and see if anyone can help me figure my problem out. I need to take all the variables and pass them in to the "Description" field in the task (in the workflow). I need to make sure make sure they display in the "description" field in a certain order, skip anything that is null, and each variable is in a new line, etc. The variables are all types (reference, integers, check box, string, etc.) This item has about 35/40 variables but I will provide how I have coded a few of them below. I am getting syntax errors and also the code is not really working.

1) is there a better way that what I have present below?

2) Can you please help me perfect my code below and explain what I might be doing wrong?

Example of my code (have to code this for about 38 variables due to them being displayed in a certain order):

//create a variable that will be appended to as you check each request variable for a value

var new_description;

var event_name = current.variables.event_name;

var event_date_start = current.variables.event_date_start;

var event_time_start = current.variables.event_time_start;

var requested_by = current.variables.requested_by;

if (null !=event_name) {

new_description = (new_description && "Name of Event: " && event_name.toString());

}

if (null !=event_date_start) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Date Event Will Begin: " && event_date_start.toString());

}

if (null !=event_time_start) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Daily Start Time: " && event_time_start.toString());

}

if (null !=requested_by) {

new_description = \n(new_description && "Requested By: " && requested_by.toString());

}

current.description = new_description;

***not passing the actual variables over because the page looks too busy for our customer and is overwhelming. that would have taken seconds to do but they wanted me to pass the value into the description field for their full-fillers to be able to read. ***

Community Alums · ‎04-25-2016

I just did a similar type of thing in a workflow, creating a task with the summary of the variables in the description field:

   var gr = new GlideRecord("sc_req_item");

   gr.addQuery("request", current.request.sys_id);

   gr.query();

   while(gr.next()) {

       // Get Owned Variables for Requested Item and sort by Order

       var ownvar = new GlideRecord('sc_item_option_mtom');

       ownvar.addQuery('request_item.number', gr.number);

       ownvar.addQuery('sc_item_option.value','!=','');

       ownvar.orderBy('sc_item_option.order');

       ownvar.query();

   var items = "Summary of " + gr.number + ":   " + gr.cat_item.getDisplayValue() + "\n\n";   

       while(ownvar.next()) {

           var field = ownvar.sc_item_option.item_option_new;

                         var fieldValue = ownvar.sc_item_option.item_option_new.name;

                         // Print variable name

             items += field.getDisplayValue() + ": " + gr.variables[fieldValue].getDisplayValue() + "\n";

         }

   }

task.description = items;

Try that and see if it works for what you need. It does skip null variables and does an 'OrderBy' based on the Order number of the variable. It ends up looking something like this:

++++++

Summary of RITM0016419: Unitize Rental/RPO Unit

Equipment Number: 0987

ETM Order Number: 0987

Tag Number: 05-698

Is this an asset?: No

Characteristic Value: Test

Characteristic Name: Test

Equipment Description: Test

Brand Name: Test

Model Number: Test

Model Year: Test

Serial Number: Test

++++++

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Tim

View solution in original post

Community Alums · ‎04-25-2016

Try this:

var new_description; 

var event_name = current.variables.event_name;

var event_date_start = current.variables.event_date_start;

var event_time_start = current.variables.event_time_start;

var requested_by = current.variables.requested_by;


if (null !=event_name) {       

new_description += "Name of Event: " + event_name.toString()) "\n";

}

if (null !=event_date_start) {     

new_description += "Date Event Will Begin: " + event_date_start.toString())"\n";

}

if (null !=event_time_start) {     

new_description += "Daily Start Time: " + event_time_start.toString())"\n";

}

if (null !=requested_by) {       

new_description += "Requested By: " + requested_by.toString())"\n";

}

task.description = new_description;

Note, I am using the '+=' operator to append to the new_description variable, and I have updated your syntax so it should not give any more errors.

Cheers,

Tim

ahsan4 · ‎04-25-2016

Thank you so much for all your help Tim!! Your answers were awesome and I appreciate you taking the time to explain what I needed as well. I wish there was a better way but for now what we did here should do the job!

have a great day and thank you!!

Community Alums · ‎04-25-2016

No worries. I just verified this works as expected on my dev instance. I modified the syntax a bit:

var new_description = "";     



if (current.variables.field1 != '') {           

new_description += "Name of Event: " + current.variables.field1 + "\n";   

}   

if (current.variables.field2 != '') {         

new_description += "Date Event Will Begin: " + current.variables.field2 + "\n";   

}   

if (current.variables.field3 != '') {         

new_description += "Daily Start Time: " + current.variables.field3 + "\n";   

}   

if (current.variables.field4 != '') {           

new_description += "Requested By: " + current.variables.field4 + "\n";   

}   

task.description = new_description;

You'll have to do all of the lines manually methinks, as I am not sure of a way to easily write a for/while loop and order the variables as they'e been requested.

Please mark helpful/correct if this helps!

Cheers,

Tim

ahsan4 · ‎04-26-2016

Hey Tim,

How come you are not using the .toString to convert the variables into string? The variables are multiple "types" (ref, integer, string, check box, etc." It is pulling in the values but due to the different types, the values are coming over in sys id forms and etc.

Community Alums · ‎04-26-2016

That part I never considered, actually. You can add it in if necessary. The form I used to test used only single line text, so no need to use 'toString'. If you're going to do that, I would do so when declaring the variables:

var event_date_start = current.variables.event_date_start.toString();