It's All Just Ones and Zeros

Item Object: Fields

Today let’s put spotlight on the item fields. First we will see how to access each field from the Item object. Then we will go through all field types and find the corresponding value type in scripting for each of them.

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Access Field Value With Field ID 

When an item is loaded, all its field properties have been put into it with their Field ID as the key. So to access the value of each field, we just need acquire it from the Item variable directly using the field ID. For example:

var name = item.NAME;  // read the value of NAME field from owner item
item.AGE++;  // increase the value of AGE field in owner item by one

PLM scripting is case sensitive, and Field IDs are always in upper case, so neither “item.name” nor “item.Age” will work in this example. Field ID is not editable and must be unique to the workspace. It doesn’t have to be the same as the field name. So if you are not sure about the field ID, you can find it in the field edit window. [Administration -> Workspace Manager -> workspace –> Item Details Tab –> Edit a field by click the pencil icon]

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Field Type vs. Data Value Type

As the above screenshot shows, there are many different field types provided. The different field type has different value type in scripting, and some of the field values are editable but some are read-only. To make things clear I put all these information into below table:

Field Type	Value Type	R/W
Auto Number	String	Read-only
Single Line Text	String	R/W
BOM UOM Pick List	String	R/W
Image	String	Read-only
URL	String	R/W
Email	String	R/W
CSV	String	R/W
Flash	String	Read-only
Paragraph	String	R/W
Paragraph w/o Line Breaks	String	R/W
Integer	Number	R/W
Float	Number	R/W
Money	Number	R/W
Date	Date	R/W
Check Box	Boolean	R/W
Derived	Same as source field	Read-only
Single-Selection1 Item-Pick-List2	Item	R/W
Multiple-Selection Item-Pick-List	Array of Item	R/W
Filtered Item-Pick-List	String	R/W
Single-SelectionValue-Pick-List3	String	R/W
Multiple-Selection Value-Pick-List	Array of String	R/W

Footnotes:

1. The Single-Selection here includes the selectable pick list field types of: “Radio Button”, “Single Selection”, “Show first value as default”, “Retains Last Saved Label”, “With search Filter” and “Latest Version”.
2. Item-Pick-List is a list of item records from a workspace, which can be chosen in the pick list creation form. Single-selection item pick list returns a single Item object. Multiple-selection item pick list returns an Array of Item objects.
   
3. Value-Pick-List is a list of String values defined by user. Single-selection returns a single String value. Multiple-selection returns an Array of String values.
   

 

-- Michal

Item In Script

In the previous posts, we had seen different script types and how to trigger scripts from different places in PLM. The next few posts will focus on the code itself. We will see how to use script create an item, update the bill of materials, add a milestone, etc. First of all, let’s start with the most important object in PLM script: Item.

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Item object is the representation of an item in scripting. In each item’s web page, we can easily acquire the relevant information about the item, such as the value in each field, the item’s owner, all the bill of materials, etc. We also can update the item by creating a relationship with another item, performing a workflow action and so on. All of those operations can also be done with Item object in scripting. So Item object will be our next big topic. In the each of coming posts, we will focus on one aspect of this object. In today’s post, I will show you how to load, create, and delete an item.

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Load Item: loadItem(dmsId)

To load an existing item, we need use the built-in function: loadItem. It takes the item’s DMS ID as the parameter, and returns the corresponding Item object. For example, if we want to load the existing item whose DMS ID is 1234 into a variable called myItem, then this is what we need:

var myItem = loadItem(1234);

Since every PLM script only can be triggered within an item’s scope, a reserved keyword “item” is used to represent the item which the script is triggered from.  We can call that item the owner item of the script. In each script, you can assume that the owner item the script has been loaded into a variable called “item” for you, so you can use “item” directly to work on the owner item. If you need any other items, then you should use loadItem function. 

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Create Item: createItem(workspaceId)

createItem can be used to create a new item in a certain workspace. The particular workspace should be specified using the parameter “workspaceId”; the created Item object will be returned. This “workspaceId” is not the numerical workspace identity, but the string identity, which can be found in each workspace’s setting page. [Administration -> Workspace Manager -> workspace –> Workspace Settings]. Then you can assign value to each field of the returned item variable, which will be saved into this new item. 

For example, to create an item in workspace “Project”:

var newItem = createItem(“WS_PROJECT”);
newItem.NAME = “PLM”;    // set String value to a Text field
newItem.STARTDATE = new Date();    // set Date value to the Date field

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Delete Item: item.deleteItem()

To delete the owner item of the script, we only need call the delete function from the owner item:

item.deleteItem();

To delete other item, we need load the item first, and then delete it:

var itemToDelete = loadItem(1234);
itemToDelete.deletetItem();

 

--Michal