Scripting

Rapid Application Development (RAD) code controls the screen flow within Service Management applications. Scripting enables you to interrupt the normal screen flow to display a series of forms or execute decision-tree processing without modifying the original RAD code. Scripting does not affect the RAD screen flow.

When scripting is useful

Scripting is useful for any process that requires an operator to supply prerequisite information. For example, during the incident determination cycle you can create a script flow for operator-entered data. Based on how a caller replies to questions regarding the incident, your script determines which screen the operator sees next. While the script is executing, the operator-entered data is accumulated in a file variable which is returned to the calling application when the script is complete.

When a script displays a form

During execution when a script displays a form, it has the look and feel of a customized RAD application and can be used in place of most RAD routines designed to gather data from a caller. Each script can display a standard form and execute its Format Control record. The instructions in the Format Control record where there is a condition on "display" that evaluates to true will be executed before the form opens, and the instructions where there is a condition on "add" that evaluates to true will be executed after the user clicks OK. If a Format Control definition fails (an error condition is detected), the user returns to the last script form.

When multiple complex decisions must be made

Scripting is also beneficial when multiple complex decisions must be made in order to reach a conclusion. For example, Change Management approval requirement conditions are normally based on the data contents of one field in the change record. Such a condition might be expressed as header,risk.assessment in $cm3r>4. However, there may be circumstances where the approval requirement condition is based on the values of several different fields. For instance, there may be three fields that affect the approval requirements: division, area, and department. Hard coding all the possible combinations of these field values into condition statements in RAD involves a great amount of work and would be nearly impossible to maintain. You can define these conditions in scripting records which do not display forms but that allow you to call a RAD subroutine or execute standard Service Management processing statements (similar to Format Control calculation statements). These options allow for the manipulation of record data. At run time, the script is a decision-tree which results in significant processing reductions over the original method of RAD coding.