Adding A Business Data Field with the Editor

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About this task

After you create a task, you can add a custom business data field with the appropriate editor. This field is added to the task business data as a separate data element; you cannot add a data field to an IS document type with this method—to do so, you must edit the IS document type, then refresh the IS document type in the task editor.

To add a business data field in the editor

Procedure

  1. In the Solutions view, double-click the task to open the selected item in the editor.
  2. Click the Business Data tab. Task business data is displayed in the Business Data area in the left area of the tab.
  3. Click Add.
  4. In the Field Type Selection dialog box, select the type of business data you want to add in the display list on the left.
  5. On the right side of the editor, define the properties of the new field:
    • Field Name. Type the name you want to apply to the field.
    • Input. Select this check box if the field is to be used as an input.
    • Output. Select this check box if the field is to be used as an output.
    • List. Select this check box if the field is to be used as a list.
    • IS document. (Available for document reference fields only) Select this check box if the field is to be used as an IS document reference. Click Browse to locate and specify an IS document type.
    • Index field in database. Select this check box to include this field in an indexed field database table in the run-time environment.
      Note: This check box is not available for IS document references, but can be applied to fields within an IS document reference. Also, only non-list primitive types can be marked as indexed fields (that is, the List check box must be cleared; otherwise, the field is an array and cannot be indexed).

      Specify the following database field settings:

      • Name. The name of the field representing the business data in the indexed search provider business data in the Bindings view. The business data field name is displayed by default; however, the name must be unique; modify this name here as required.

        For example, suppose you want to index two separate but similar fields: Shipping Address > City and Billing Address > City. By default, both fields display the name “City”; if you simply accept the default value, both will appear as “City” in the Bindings view and will not be distinguishable. The solution is to apply two different names such as "Shipping City" and "Billing City" so they are easily identified in the Bindings view.

      • Type. The field type of the business data as it will be stored in the database table. The business data field type is displayed by default; however, if you want to store the data in the indexed field database table in a different type format, specify that format here.
      • Size. Enabled only for field types that require a size definition (for example, var char). Type the field size definition here.
      • Binding. Available only for fields that are children of a list. At run time, the total number of objects in a list is not known; therefore, you must specify which object from the list you want to index by providing an index value in the binding expression displayed in the Binding field:

        #{currentTask.taskData.ISDocumentName.ListName[0]}

        where “0” (zero) represents the index value. The value “0”(the first item in the list) is specified by default, but you can replace it with any index value. You can index only one object from a list.

  6. Click OK.

Results

The business data field is added to the task. If you want to expose the business data field in the user interface, see Adding Task Business Data Fields to a Page or View.