Creating Cases from Line items

Firstly, create a few Custom Fields to support the process:

As an additional step, you can also update your form layouts to show these fields, or create reports to surface the data. See step 2 for more detail on the reports needed to support this process.

Create two separate Workbooks reports to drive the process.

We’ve provided template reports with the required fields already included. We recommend using these as a starting point, then add any extra columns you need for Order to Case field mappings (see step 3 for more details).

To create the reports, go to Start > New > Report > Create report from a template report, then select the report you want from the list below:

• Report 1:  Order Line Items that need Cases – this is the main report that the Scheduled Process will use to identify Orders that need processing. You’ll need to make a few changes to this report to customize it for your database:
  • Add a Report Criteria as follows:
    • Process Failure = FALSE (this ensures that any Orders that failed to process are removed from this report so that the process can continue to operate even if there was an issue. NOTE: Failures are dealt with in Report 2 below).
    • Line Items > Case Reference IS BLANK (this ensures that any Order Line Items that were successfully processed are removed from the Report)
    • Add any custom columns to the Report. These can then be mapped to the Case records that are created when this process runs and is configured in Step 4 below.
    • This post assumes you have a DLI to People records to track the Contact for an Order, you can of course use a different field if you wish but the Report Columns must have the data specified below, otherwise the script will fail to create a Case or not populate fields as you may expect. If you do not currently have a Person DLI in place on your Order records, see here for an example. Add 3 x new columns as follows:

• Report 2: Orders with Processing Errors – this report can be used as an exception report to identify Orders that have failed to process. If this happens you will need to review the failed Orders and either fix them, or raise the issue with Workbooks Support. Once the issue has been resolved, set the Process Failure checkbox to FALSE to re-process the Order. To create this report, take a copy of the 1st Report above and change the Report Criteria to the following:
  • Process Failure = TRUE (the process automatically sets this field to TRUE if there was a failure either creating a Case, or updating the Order Line Item).
  • Case Reference (remove this criteria)

If the process fails, your admin users need to be notified so the Order can still be processed. If you’re using Scheduled Process mode (see step 4), an email will be sent with the error details to a chosen address.

We’ve provided a basic template to support this. To add it to your database, go to Start > Marketing > Templates > New Template, select A specific record type, then choose Orders.

Select the template called ‘Cases from order line items – error handling’. You can then update it to suit your needs, including:

• Email Template Name:  Either leave this as the default, or rename to something more appropriate
• From: Choose the email account the message should be sent from.
  You’ll need to set up an email account in Workbooks before you can select it here. See here for more details.
• To:  Enter in the email addresses of any recipients that should be notified of a process failure.
• Subject:  You can leave this as the default or rename it to something more relevant. The @object_ref@ placeholder will automatically be replaced with the Order reference (for example, ORD-123) when the email is sent.
• Body:  We’ve included some default text, but you can update this if needed.
  At a minimum, replace “REPLACE_WITH_PROCESS_NAME” with the name of the process you’ll set up in step 4.

Check the sharing permissions for this template so it’s available to the user the scheduled process will run as. We usually recommend running automated processes as the “Automation” user.

To do this, open the email template, select the sharing padlock, and add a new row to share the template as follows:

Take note of the name that you saved the Email Template with, you will need this for Step 4 below, whilst configuring the Scheduled Process Parameters. 

Go to Start > Configuration > Automation > Scheduled Processes, and create a new scheduled process called ‘Create cases from orders’. Set the following options on the process:

• Name:  Create Cases from Orders
• Script:  Script Library > Create Cases from Order Line Items
• Run As:  Automation
• Enabled:  TRUE
• Log Level:  Set to “Debug” and set the date to be 1 week from now. This will allow any initial setup issues to be investigated and resolved easily

Make sure to update the default scheduled process frequency to suit your business needs and expected Order and Case volumes. Once everything is set up, click Save. This will reveal a Parameters tab, where you’ll need to configure the following:

You can map fields from an Order to a Case to suit your business needs using the case_field_mappings parameter. Before updating the parameter, add the relevant columns to the first report created in step 2.

Use the following format for each mapping:

REPORT_COLUMN_NAME:CASE_FIELD_NAME 

For example, to map a column called ‘Company Brand’ from an Order to a Case:

• Add a Company Brand column to the first report
• Set the parameter value to:
  • company_brand:cf_case_brand 

Each mapping should be separated by a new line (i.e. pressing return/enter on your keyboard).

Go to Start > Configuration > Customization > Orders, then open Form layouts and select the appropriate layout. On the Automation tab, select New process button and configure the options as follows:

• Button Text: Create Production Cases(change as appropriate)
• Script Location: Script Library
• Script: Create Cases from Order Line Items
• Enable: True
• Run As: Automation
• Position: First (ensures this is a Button Process, not an On Save Process)

Once you have saved the Process, a new tab called “Parameter Values” appears. Configure the Parameters here in a similar way to the Scheduled Process but with the following values:

You may have more than one Form Layout in your database. Therefore, if you want the button to show on different Form Layouts you will need to repeat Step 5.