Adding Mbo records to a MboSet

In this blog I will show you in detail how to add new Mbo records to a MboSet.

The easy pattern

To do so we will directly start with a simple code example:

woset = session.getMboSet('WORKORDER')
wo = woset.add()
if wo is not None:
    wo.setValue("DESCRIPTION","New Testworkorder")
    wo.setValue("WOPRIORITY", 10)
 
    # Only save if necessary (e.g. Script executed via RMI)
    woset.save()

This is the simplest form of adding a record. At the beginning we need to have a MboSet object stored to the woset variable.
By using the add method woset.add() a new record will be added to an existing MboSet. The record is added at the beginning of the MboSet. If you would like to add the new record to the end of the existing set you can use the woset.addAtEnd() method.

Very important is line 3 to check if we really have created a new object instance. Without that check our wo.setValue(..) method calls would result in Null Pointer exceptions. The wo.setValue method is quite easy to use to set the individual fields in the MboSet. The good thing at this method is that it does not differentiate between datatypes.

The woset.save() method call is a bit special and need some explanation. Depending on the way you run your script you should or should not save the MboSet at the end:

  • In general no saving on object & attribute launchpoints
  • In general no saving in workflow actions
  • In general save in RMI Scripting, in direct invocation or when you act on a dialog button.

But as you can imagine there is no rule without exceptions and you eventually have to trial and error to find the correct usage.

Add Mbo records to multiple MboSet’s using transactions

In the previous example we just added a single record to a single Mbo. What if we wan’t to a add an additional Worklog entry to the new Workorder. What about transaction processing. We only want to create the Workorder together with the worklog entry or fail both. The following script shows such an example:

woset = session.getMboSet('WORKORDER')
wo = woset.add()
if wo is not None:
    wo.setValue("DESCRIPTION","New Testworkorder 3")
    wo.setValue("WOPRIORITY", 10)
 
    worklogset = wo.getMboSet("WORKLOGAPPT")
    worklog = worklogset.add()
    if worklog is not None:
        worklog.setValue("DESCRIPTION", "WLOG Descr.")
        woset.save()
        print "Workorder " + wo.getString("WONUM")  + " created !"

This example is quite similar to the first one. The difference is that we navigate from our newly created workorder Mbo to a Worklog MboSet via a predefined relationship. Using a relationship at this point automatically holds together the two MboSets via a transaction. There is nothing else via have to do to create this kind of dependency! Cool, isn’t it?

The next line to mention is the woset.save() statement. You could ask: “Why do we do not save the Workorder object?” My answer is: “Save the object you want! Since both MboSet objects are linked by a relationship it doesn’t matter which object you save. The result is the same!”

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