MForms Automation in Mashups

Let’s explore MForms Automation in Infor Smart Office Mashups.

MForms Automation

MForms Automation execute sequences of steps through M3 programs, e.g. run CRS610, enter a customer number in field W1OBKV, and press ENTER:

MForms Automation Builder is located at C:\SmartOfficeSDK\External\M3\Tools\MFormsAutomationBuilder.exe:

In Mashups

To use them in Mashups, we tell MForms Automation Builder to create an MForms URI encoded, we copy/paste the URI into the desired property in Mashup Designer which will XML-encode it, and we carefully replace the hard-coded values by parameter names in curly braces with the corresponding parameter binding:

Smart Office will do the variable substitution, and will execute a CMDTP=RUN with the XML:

I find the whole process of URI-encoding, XML-encoding, and curly brace replacement too error-prone and time consuming for routine maintenance, so I found an alternative.

Alternative

I find it easier to preserve the original XML in a CDATA section in the XAML:

Note: We must omit spaces between the CDATA start and XML declaration; the rest can be indented.

I find this alternative to be more elegant and easier to maintain than the double-encoded surgical process above.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

That’s it.

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Published by

thibaudatwork

ex- M3 Technical Consultant View all posts by thibaudatwork

7 thoughts on “MForms Automation in Mashups”

Scott Torrance says:

July 14, 2016 at 6:15 am

Good post. My preference is to use the second method as it is easier to read.

Does it make any difference putting the “mforms://_automation/?data=” part of the MForms string outside the CDATA tag? All of mine it’s inside the tag.

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1. thibaudatwork says:
  
  July 14, 2016 at 7:32 am
  
  Hi Scott,
  
  I don’t think the order makes a difference.
  
  One problem I forgot to mention is the lack of URI-encoding with this second method, but it doesn’t seem to have any impact, the result works equally well.
  
  Question: how did you think of using this second method? I’ve only seen the first method. If it’s already mentioned in a document somewhere, I will make sure to read the rest of the document for other good stuff.
  
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dmolinaj24@gmail.com says:

March 13, 2018 at 1:02 am

Hi,

Is it possible to refresh the calling mashup panel once modal M3 panel is closed?

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1. Dom says:
  
  March 18, 2018 at 6:52 pm
  
  Sorry subscribing correctly to this.
  
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Anonymous says:

October 11, 2018 at 8:32 am

Thanks for the Post above,
It helped me a lot.

My only question for the moment is that does mforms automation builder have the ability to get Values from fields rather than set .
For example:
If I am on crs610 (customers open),
I select a customer
could I use the mforms automation builder to get the Customer number(CUNO) from the selected customer
Open OIS300 (Customer Orders) and then filter by the customer number?

Any help is appreciated.

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1. teobol says:
  
  February 6, 2020 at 12:25 pm
  
  Hi, thanks for your effort spreading the knowledge…
  I have question, scenario : we have a Mashup which lists some lines, let’s say Distribution Order proposals.
  I’ve created a button which releases the selected proposal through MForms automation. But if I want to select multiple rows and release them, how should I implement it to my button? It only works one by one…
  
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