Check if a record is locked

It is useful to check to see if the record is lock before beginning any processing. This eliminates the process to spin and wait for the record to be unlocked. When you work withe the WebAPI, it is more important to return a status of "resource is unavailable please try again" than to wait and risk the process timing out. To check to see if a record is locked, follow the below template:

XKV.FILE = V.BPV.DOC.IDS
XR.FILE = ""
CALL @MIO.READ.RECORD(MIO.READU.EXIT.ON.LOCKED,XFV.FILE,XKV.FILE,XR.FILE)
IF MIO.STATUS = MIO.STAT.LOCKED THEN ;* file is locked
   X.ERROR = 1
   * Output your message, set the status, or do some other process
END ELSE ;* record is not lock, proceed like normal
   * normal record read/write
END

The following give you different statuses of the lock check:

To read a record from a previously opened file.
@MIO.READ.RECORD(read_option, FV.FILE, KV.FILE, R.FILE)

Where FV.FILE is the previously opened file, KV.FILE is the key of the
record to be read, and R.FILE is the array into which the record will be
read.

Read_option is one of the following. These are equates so they should not
be surrounded by quotes.

MIO.READ - Reads the record without locking

MIO.READU - Reads the record and locks. If the record is already locked by
someone else, the user will get a message and will have the opportunity to
cancel the command.

MIO.READU.NO.CANCEL - Same as READU but without the option to cancel if the
record is locked.

MIO.READ.VERIFY - Checks to see if the record exists. R.FILE will be set to
1 if the record exists and 0 if the record does not exist. The entire
record is not read into the R.FILE variable if this option is used.

MIO.READ.ORIG - Will read the record from disk instead of from the MIO
memory buffers.

Modify/Compile Envision processes in the terminal

If you have access to Desktop UI's terminal, or connection to the unidata application layer, you can directly modify and compile envision processes. Altho this is not a recommended practice, it can come in handy when you need to put out fire quickly.

In the terminal, open the file you want to edit with command:

:AE ST.SUBROUTINES C70.S.MY.SUBROUTINE

You need to determine the location of the process you're trying to edit. If it's a FA subroutine, then then instead of ST.SUBROUTINES, use FA.SUBROUTINES.

You can search for the text using "/Text to search". After you find the line, to can go to that line by just typing in the line number. You can then replace the text with "C/"Text to be replaced"/"Text to replace with". After you are done editing, use the command "FIB" to File and Batch, which also compiles the process. Boom, you're done!

You can find more about AE editor here Unidata Command Refs

self service "Could not validate this request's antiforgery token"

You may encounter this error while customizing Ellucian's self service. To fix this error, make sure you run the application in Local IIS, instead of IIS Express

After setting the default to Local IIS, you will want to delete all the cookies pertaining to the localhost. In chrome, go to Settings - Content Settings - All cookies and site data... then search for cookies belong to localhost

Delete these and try again. Similar steps should be taken with the browser you use to test self service.

How to find references to a field in SQL backend

This query will give you a good list of reference on a particular field. You can find all references to it from processes and screens. This requires you to have a SQL backend and a studio to query the database. Replace 'APPLICATIONS.ID' with name of the field you want to find reference.

declare @fieldName as varchar(20) = 'APPLICATIONS.ID'
SELECT PROCESS_NAME as 'Process ID', PROCESS_TYPE as 'Process Type', PROCESS_DIRECT_ACCESS_NAME as 'UI Mnemonic' from PRCS_DEF A left JOIN PRCS_CTL B
ON A.PROCESS_NAME = B.PROCESS_MNEMONIC
where PROCESS_DATA_ELEMENTS like '%'+@fieldName+'%' or
PROCESS_DEMAND_ELEMENTS like '%'+@fieldName+'%' or PROCESS_DEMAND_POINTERS like '%'+@fieldName+'%'
ORDER BY PROCESS_DIRECT_ACCESS_NAME DESC, PROCESS_TYPE 

The result would look something like this:

How to add ColleagueSDK to Visual Studio

ColleagueSDK for .NET allows you to add DataContract and Transactions from Colleague to your VS projects. You will need this if you want to compile/customize Ellucian Self Service. In this post I will use ColleagueSDK for .NET version 1.8 and MS 2013.

First, you can download the installer from SA Valet.

Run the .exe file and you will have this folder created.

Run ColleagueDataContractGenerator.vsix and the VS extension will be added to your local Microsoft Visual Studio. ColleagueSDK no longer supports VS 2010 and only supports 2012 and 2013 so far. Make sure you have one of those installed first.

To add Colleague parameters, double click on CollSDKParamsEditor.exe. You will see the editor as following:

Click on Help/View Help if you need help filling out the screen. This form requires similar information you use to login to Colleague Studio. Once you're done, hit File/Save to save your configuration file that you can then use in your VS project.

After the extension has been added to VS, you should be able to add DataContract or Colleague Transaction to your VS project.

Using ESEARCH to find hidden process references

Colleague Studio is a very user friendly tool that can do many things with simple mouse clicks. However, it's not perfect, and sometimes it does not do what it says it does 100% to completion. Let's take "Show Reference" for example. Colleague Studio will show you a partial list of processes that reference a particular process. If you still have access to the terminal in Desktop UI, using ESEARCH command can help in these kinds of research.

We will look at one of the Ellucian's delivered subroutine, S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN, for this example. When checking for references in Colleague Studio, the list looks like this:

Now that I know this subroutine is mainly called in ST, I can go to the terminal and check for the complete list.

The above screen shows the usage of ESEARCH. You specify the folder/category of processes you want to search for. The above searches for UI/Webadvisor forms in ST. After the search, the result is saved in a savedlist named DTP. When you open DTP up, either in the terminal or in UI using SLED, you will see the more complete list of UI/Webadvisor forms that reference S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN in ST.

Looking at the result, we can see more processes that reference S.CHECK.IF.WITHDRAWN than what Colleague Studio provides. I have found that Colleague doesn't not maintain references to custom processes very well, so ESEARCH is a good way to double-check. You can search for processes in corresponding applications:

appl.SUBROUTINES -> appl subroutines

appl.SOUCE -> appl screens

All of this requires you to have access to the terminal, of course. You can do a similar search using the window explorer on the Colleague file server, but that takes way longer for me.

Killing Unidata session (softly with STOPUDT)

A while back when Colleague UI was first introduced, users started to X'ing out of the web-browser to close the session instead of using the logout button. That resulted in many runaways processes that used up the small license pool we had. I learned to kill those sessions through the terminal as following:

Open Colleague Desktop UI terminal:

LISTUSER: this lists all active sessions

LISTUSER | find "username": this finds a particular user's active sessions with "username"

Kill the session by:

STOPUDT usrnbr(user number): kill the session using the user's number, it's the number on the second column after using LISTUSER

* Note: insert a bang ("!") in front of LISTUSER or STOPUDT to use admin right if the commands don't work

You can use LISTUSER to check to see if your process is still running or the screen has frozen. Many times I waited for a process for so long just to find out the session was disconnected.