Conditional user interface

Conditions are clauses or classes that evaluate to true or false when they are evaluated against an object. Conditions can be applied to user interface (UI) controls to control how the UI is shown to users and to support your business processes. You can apply conditional data restrictions, signature options to conditionally control access to controls, or conditional control properties to configure the UI.

You can bind any UI control to a signature option to grant or revoke access to the control by groups of users. You can also apply conditions to the properties of a control so that the control looks or behaves differently for specified groups of users based on the evaluation of the applied conditions. For example, you can apply conditions to a control so that the color of the control changes depending on the value shown.
You can use the Application Designer to associate a control with a signature option and conditions. When a control is bound to a signature option or an attribute, you can take the following actions:
  • Configure its behavior by setting a data restriction or conditional data restriction in Security Groups
  • Grant the option in the Security Groups application
  • Configure conditional properties in the Application Designer
When you are planning your conditional user interface system, you choose between the implementation methods listed. Data restrictions are useful for implementations where you want the restriction that you create to apply to every user interface element or application that uses an object or attribute. Security restrictions are useful when you want to restrict access to a control or to data to a specific group of users.

Example: Showing status options based on the status of the current record

XYZ Corporation requires that the work order status that is available to work order dispatchers is based on the current work order status. For this company, when a work order status is Waiting on Approval, only the values Approved and Canceled are available to the dispatchers.

To implement this business process, in the Condition Expression Manager, create the following conditional expression:

WOSTATUSAPPR :status = ‘WAPPR’

Then in the Application Designer application, apply that condition to the domain values WOSTATUS|APPR and WOSTATUS|CAN. The status options shown on the UI reflect the status of the current work order.

Example: Changing historical data to read-only

ABC Inc. requires that all users see completed work orders from previous financial accounting periods as read-only. To implement this behavior, the application developer creates a condition that is true if the date checked is in the past. The date condition is evaluated against the date on completed work order records. The developer applies the condition to work order data in the Security Groups application for the security group that contains all users.

When the condition is evaluated, it returns a value of true if the work order date is from a previous financial period. All users see work order records from previous financial periods as read-only on the UI.