Troubleshooting

What are the minimum rights I need to be able to work with action definitions in the Actions Wizard?

In order to create and save action definitions, the site designer must have Administrator access to the library where actions are saved. Contributor or Web Designer access is not sufficient. This restriction is due to the fact that the Action Wizard creates the action definitions programmatically and SharePoint requires full permissions to do so.

I tried to copy an action definition from one library to another, but it isn’t working. What is the best way to copy a definition?

An action definition is comprised of more than just its XML definition; there are additional metadata values stored in hidden columns. As a result, a definition cannot be manually copied from one library to another. CorasWorks recommends that you either build another copy of the definition using the Actions Wizard or use the Data Publisher to copy the definition.

•      The Actions Wizard will automatically create the necessary columns in your library if they do not already exist.

•      If you use the Data Publisher, you need to copy the Title column and the Action Type column. If the Action Type column does not exist in the destination library, have the Data Publisher create it.

I want to use the Publisher action to copy records to a list that doesn’t have all of the same columns as the source list. Is there an easy way to create those fields and make sure no data is lost in the copy?

Yes, there is. The Actions Wizard presents a drop-down list of available fields in the destination list or library that you can map to or, if you want, you can type a new field name in the drop-down. Just type over any text that’s shown in the drop-down. When the action is executed, if the field name you typed in the action definition does not exist in the destination list or library, that field will be created and populated for you with the value from the source list or library.

You can even create new fields to preserve system data, such as the original creation date or the ID of the last person to modify the source item.

How do actions work across site collections?

When actions were initially introduced in the Winter 2006 release, they would allow you to copy (or pull) data from another site collection into the current one. However, they did NOT allow you to write (or push) data to any site collection other than the current one. This applied to all action types that write or modify data.

If you are working with Summer 2006 or a later release, all actions can be run within or across sites, across site collections, and even across virtual servers, as long as the work is done within the same configuration database. Documents and other attachments can also be copied across sites, site collections, and virtual servers.

I’m not sure whether I want to use a Create Item Link, Create List Item, or Publisher action. Any suggestions for when to use each type of action?

The Publisher, Create List Item, and Create Item Link action types can achieve very similar results, but there are some important differences.

The key benefit of the Publisher action type is that it allows you to map fields from the source to the destination. It allows you to create new fields in the destination list or library, and name those new fields as you wish. This allows you to select only the fields you want to work with, and maintain system information such as the original creation date.

The Create List Item action type performs a similar function in that it allows you to create a copy of a record, but it does not offer any mapping abilities. You can, however, create a new item that can contain a combination of data copied from the source plus hard-wired data from the action definition.

The Create Item Link action type can be utilized as a kind of offshoot of these two action types that lets you virtually workflow information without actually moving it. With this kind of action, you send a link as opposed to the actual data. In addition to the actual link, the item can include metadata copied from the source.

Are there any recommendations or limits regarding what can and cannot be done with actions and documents?

During performance testing, CorasWorks successfully tested actions with documents totaling 125MB and creating up to 200 items.

I want to create a Global Link, but I don’t see how I can do that. Why not?

In order to add, maintain, or reference Global Links, Central Configuration must be enabled. If it isn’t enabled, you won’t see the “Maintain Global Links” link. The “Maintain Global Links” link can be found at the top of the Actions Wizard, and on the Actions tab of the administration interface for Active Displays, Cross-Connects, and the Action Selector.

Is there anything I can do to make sure my actions are always portable?

If you want to ensure that the action definitions referenced by Active Displays and Cross-Connects are always portable, use a Global Link to point to the site where the actions library(ies) is stored. If any changes need to be made to the Global Link, they can be made in a single location and affect all of the Active Displays that reference it. See the Global Links, topic for details.