Running Action Views

To run an action view:

1. Click the Action Views tab.
2. In the list view, click the name of the action view template that you want to use or start typing part of the template's name into the Search box. As you type, the list filters to show you only templates with those characters in their name.
3. [Optional] If the selection rule associated with the action view template contains criteria set to prompt, or any column filters on the action view template have criteria set to prompt, these criteria are listed so that you can supply the relevant values. Row selection prompts are listed first, followed by column filter prompts.
   
   To see a picklist of the values that you can use in the prompts, click . If you leave a value blank, the action view looks for blank values of that field. (Values can only be left blank if the prompt is using the '=' or '<>' operator.) If the value is a date, you can enter either an explicit date (hard date) or an offset of the current date (soft date Salesforce refers to soft dates as "relative date values". FinancialForce Accounting supports the following relative date values: Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, Last "n" Days, Next "n" Days, This Week, Last Week, Next Week, This Year, Last Year, Next Year. See the Salesforce Help for details of how these relative date values are resolved. Note that Last "n" Days and Next "n" Days are ranges. For example if today is May 25 then Last 3 Days is from May 23 to May 25. A filter on transaction date of "< Last 3 days" would retrieve transactions dated prior to May 23.). If you want to ignore a criterion, click its 'x' icon to remove it from the list of prompts.
   
   
   Note:

   At runtime you can change the operator for prompts. For example, you may want to use <= instead of =.

4. [Optional] When you have completed any prompts, click Select to continue.

Note:

An error message is displayed if you encounter platform limits because the action view is trying to retrieve too much data. You can work around volume issues by summarizing your data. See What is Summarization? Summarized data is not live data therefore when you run an action view that inquires on summarized data a message is displayed telling you when the data was built. Contact your System Administrator if you encounter issues with platform limits because the dataview or action view template may need modifying, or he may decide to use summarization.

Drilling

If the icon is displayed in a column heading, you can left-click on values in that column to drill to more detail. A new results tab will open up displaying further analysis of the row you clicked on.

You can also right-click on a cell and select an alternative action view template to present the drill results using the chosen template. Only templates based on the same dataview as the current results are available for selection.

Note:

The actual results you see when drilling depend upon how your System Administrator has configured the dataviews and action view templates in your org. For more information see About Common Names and Drilling.

Opening a Related Content Pane

If the icon is displayed next to a results row, click it to show a pane of related content, such as contact or address information. The pane slides out from the right-hand side of the screen. As you click the icon for different rows in the grid, the information in the pane updates. The name and driving object are shown at the top of the pane. Your pane may have more than one tab of information. For more information see Using Related Content Panes.

Flagging Rows for Attention

Columns identified by enable you to mark rows for attention. Click in this column to turn the flag on or off for the current row.

Normally clicking in this column turns the flag on or off for individual rows. If clicking on a row sets the flag for multiple rows, this is because those rows share the same key value. For example, if you are browsing opportunity line items and the key field on the dataview is Opportunity, set the flag for one opportunity line item to also set the flag for other opportunity line items belonging to the same opportunity. Your System Administrator decides which is the key field in a dataview.

The flagged status of rows is saved when you save your view, so that when you re-run the same action view later, the rows you had flagged are still shown as flagged. You can also filter and sort on this column.

If a row cannot be flagged for attention, the symbol is displayed in this column.

Selecting Rows for an Action

Click the checkbox next to a row to select it. You can then perform an action on it by clicking the button.

Creating and Editing Templates from the Action Views tab

When you run action views, note that you can create and edit action view templates from the Action Views tab:

• Create a new action view template by clicking New Action View Template. The Action View Template - New page opens for you to create a new template.
• Edit an existing action view template by clicking Edit for the template you want to edit. The Action View Template - Edit page opens with the template loaded so that you can make your edits.

For more information see Creating Action View Templates and Action View Template Fields.