Templates in Problem Management

Someone asked this question in the forums, and I thought this was a good topic to cover. SM has good potential to use Templates, and theoretically has the ability to use that in any module - including completely customized ones. But ironically enough, while some of the groundwork is there to enable Templates on the Problem Management module, it's like HP stopped part way through development and never finished it. So, this sounded like a good place to go through how to enable Templates for Problem Management.

There are a couple of ScriptLibrary scripts at the heart of Templates in Service Manager; Template, TemplateFilter, and TemplateTables. I didn't write those at all, and this is just my understanding of how they work based on what they seem to do.

The first step is the simplest (and what I thought was going to be the _only_ step for Problem Management). Menu Navigation -> Tailoring -> Document Engine -> Object to open the Document Engine Object record, and search for the "rootcause" Object record. In the Views/Templates, set the "Support Templates" checkbox to true.

In the TemplateFilter.canModifyTemplate function, there is code to determine whether or not a user in a given module has access to use and create Template records. The OOB code on lines 99 - 103 has code in place for Problem Management (rootcause, rootcausetask, and knownerror).

else if(tableName=="rootcause" || tableName=="rootcausetask" ||tableName=="knownerror")
{
if(system.vars.$G_rc_environment.modifyTemplate!=n ull && system.vars.$G_rc_environment.modifyTemplate)
return true;
}

But while code is in place in the ScriptLibrary, the field it references in that code doesn't even exist in the rcenv dbdict record. There is no modifyTemplate field. So, we have to add it.

Use Menu Navigation -> Tailoring -> Database Dictionary to access the dbdict application. You're going to need to add a modifyTemplate boolean field.

Name: modifyTemplate
Type: boolean

At this point, stop and restart Service Manager.

To make this new field available, you have to update the rc.profile.g record. It's simple enough to add a Checkbox form element. Use modifyTemplate as your input.

The last steps are fairly simple; you just need to create the displayoption records. The two actions "createTemplate" and "applyTemplate" that are used in the displayoption records are considered base actions - that means that you don't need to update the Document Engine State record, just use them in the Action field of the displayoption record.

Screen ID: rca.view
Unique ID: rca.view_applyTemplate
GUI Option: 214
Text Option: 214
Bank: 1
Action: applyTemplate
Default Label: Apply Template
Text Alternative: Apply Template
Condition: supportTemplates in $L.object=true and evaluate($L.tableAccess.update)

Screen ID: rca.view
Unique ID: rca.view_createTemplate
GUI Option: 215
Text Option: 215
Bank: 1
Action: createTemplate
Default Label: Create Template from Record
Text Alternative: createTemplate
Condition: evaluate(nullsub(modifyTemplate in $G.rc.environment, false)) and supportTemplates in $L.object=true

Now, for whatever reason, on the system I've worked on, there's some sort of issue with the datadict records and the Folders globallist. One of the functions of the tablefunctions Script in the ScriptLibrary is to look at the dbdict record to provide field captions for the field names, and to provide the values in the dropdowns. I'm not sure if it's because the Folders aren't being used in our environment or what, but, I got errors until I edited the datadict record.

Type datadict in the command window to access the datadict record; search for the rootcause record. In the Validations tab, in the Global List column, scroll down to the folder field and remove the global list "Folder" from the column, and save the record. Stop Service Manager, start it back up, and there you go. You should be able to use and create Templates in Problem Management.