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RAIS 3.0 Programmer’s Guide – Part I : Advanced Customization
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2.3.2 Comments
No restrictions apply on how many consistency checks may be attached to one form, one
consistency check may even be reused throughout different forms.
To avoid for loss or overwriting of custom consistency checks after RAIS updates, it is highly
recommended to use the prefix “CUSTOM - ” for all your custom consistency checks names;
this prefix is not used by RAIS developers. Section 3.1.3 details how bulk copies of queries
with a user define prefix may be easily achieved.
Consistency checks may only evaluate stored records and data modified by the current user;
consistency checks are not able to check other users on screen data, possibly being modified
at that moment too.
Consistency checks usually take into account unmodified data of the record having just been
modified, as that data still is stored in the underlying table. So usually the record being
modified has to be excluded from consistency checks by appropriately filtering upon primary
key. This applies especially to consistency checks checking for duplicates.
Take care to optimize consistency checks with respect to speed.
2.4 Creating Custom Preselection Values
Propagators are used in RAIS 3.0 for setting preselected values of fields when a new record is
about to be created. Use of Preselection values can speed up the performance of users becaue
less data is needed to be entered. Propagators are not triggered when an existing record is
modified or when modifications are to be saved.
When selecting information items in RAIS 3.0, as for example facilities, we have the
possibility to reduce the amount of data visualized by means of pre-selection filters; we may
for example select only facilities working within a given region. If we have set this
preselection filter, and enter a new facility, the selected region is automatically set. This is
done in RAIS by means of propagating preselection values into input forms of information
items. RAIS not only is able to propagate preselected values. Any type of value may be
propagated, a simple constant as well as the result of a complex Visual Basic function.
Propagators also are used to automatically set foreign keys pointing to the correct generator
record when entering new generator history records
Propagation of preselected values is defined in the table [Propagator – Preselection], having
the following table definition:
Form Name Name of the form that will use this preselection propagation
Field Name Field that will receive the value of the propagator
Parameter Name Name of the control element containing the value to be propagated
Parent Not used any more
2.4.1 Examples
2.4.1.1 Propagating Preselection Values
Let us start with the example of an existing preselection propagator, above mentioned
propagation of the selected region. This is the entry in the table [Propagator – Preselection]
Form Name SUB EDIT Facility