Setup guide
OSx Migration Cookbook August 30, 2006
11 – Action Requests
Action request
types
Migrating action
requests
An action request is a function that asks an operator to do
something. The request can be as simple as asking the operator to
acknowledge that some event occurred in the system, or as complex
as asking the operator to provide a value or make a choice. Action
requests allow the process to make requests to operators. An
explanation of how these work is in the OSx manual set. Both OSx
and PCS 7/505 implement action requests so that they are similarly
configured and behave the same.
OSx supports 5 different types of action requests: view, event log,
acknowledge, enter value and multi-choice. PCS 7 supports 6 types:
the five OSx types and an additional multi-choice type. To
distinguish between the two the form is labeled Multi-choice (OSx
style) and Multi-choice. The former behaves as in OSx and writes
0x1 through 0x8 for choices 1 through 4 to the answer tag, while
the latter writes the displayed choice to the answer tag.
You can create action requests via DBA either one at a time
manually or by importing them in bulk. Manual creation is through
a form that looks very similar to the one used in OSx. For more
than a few, action requests, bulk import is more efficient and less
tedious.
When you import action requests in bulk, you use a csv file that
contains the action requests. DBA reads these files and configures
the action requests. These files are obtained by exporting the action
requests from OSx or by manually creating them with a spreadsheet
or a text editor. The export from OSx is done via the Data
Extraction Services offered by PAS R&D. You send a backup of
your system to PAS R&D and they return a set of files, one of
which contains action requests.
OSx treats action requests as a separate namespace from tags. PCS
7 handles them in the same namespace. Therefore, You cannot have
action requests in PCS 7 whose name is the same as a PCS 7 tag
structure. When doing a bulk import into DBA you are given the
opportunity to add a prefix to all your action requests to ensure that
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