Article published on the 17th of February 2022.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Requirements
3.2. Example: End-of-year roll over of a case
3.3. Creating a My Tools button for copying entities
5. Notes
1. Introduction
Copying entities can have various purposes under different scenarios when working in WorkPoint.
With the option to copy entities, WorkPoint makes it possible to create copies of existing entities while simultaneously setting specific data fields. One example of this could be creating a copy of a Case entity on a Case Management solution. when creating the copy of the case, the completion date can be automatically set in relation to the original case, e.g. by displacing the original completion date and using that date for the copy.
A typical use case for this feature could be accountants making annual accounts for clients. Each year becomes a case with it's own set of tasks that needs to be completed. Every year, the case from the previous year could be copied using this feature along with all tasks, and deadlines can then be displaced by e.g. a year.
Another use case could be related to Project Management where a new project a new project similar to a previous project needs to be created. In that case, the previous project can be copied along with e.g. task- and risk lists. A deadline for the new project can then be set, and sub-deadlines for e.g tasks can then be displaced accordingly.
2. Requirements
Use of the Copy Entity Settings requires that your WorkPoint license includes the Time Displacement feature.
In addition, this feature requires that your license includes the Wizard Configurator Framework.
For more information on acquiring these features for your license, please contact WorkPoint Support at support@workpoint.dk.
3. Configuration
The settings for copying entities are configurable from the business module menus in the WorkPoint Administration:
- In the WorkPoint Administration dashboard, click the header of the business module for which you wish to configure the Entity Copy settings.
- In the business module menu, click "Entity Copy Settings".
Note that enabling some of the following settings may reveal additional settings to be configured.
- Select which wizard to use for copying entities. This field is required, and only wizard configurations using the "Copy Entity" wizard step can be selected in this field. Instruction on how to create a "Copy Entity" wizard can can be found in this article and should be follows if you do not have such a wizard already.
- Select if the Copy Entity wizard should support Time Displacement. The Time Displacement can be fixed or relative to the selected Time Displacement Field. Options are:
- None: Time displacement of the copied entity is disabled.
- Fixed: The copied entity is time displaced to a fixed date which can be set in the Copy Entity wizard during copying. All selected date fields of items copied along with the entity (e.g. tasks) are time displaced accordingly. An example of this could be an original project with a start date on the 21nd of October. If we create a copy of this entity and use a Fixed time displacement to the 14th of April, that would be time displacement of 175 days. The start date of the copied entity would then be the 14th of April and the selected date fields for items copied (e.g. Tasks) are time displaced by 175 days. Note that time displacement values can be negative (e.g. time displacement of -90 days).
- Relative: The copied entity is time displaced by a configurable amount relative to the original entity, e.g. 1 year relative to the original start date of a project.
- Select if relations of the original entity should be copied to the new entity.
- Select if the copy entity wizard selected should skip the last step in the wizard which allows you change the properties for the new Project to be created.
- In the "Custom entity copy data endpoint" field, you can configure a connection to a custom endpoint. This could e.g. be a connection to a Power Automate flow, which takes the entity object and performs some logic using it's data, for example for validation purposes, and returns a response depending on certain outcomes. The logic and steps performed in the endpoint flow could also manipulate the copied entity data and send the new object as part of the response. Depending on the response, the copy process can either be interrupted with a warning- or error message, or be allowed to continue. The following image illustrates a scenario where "department" on an entity is blank, and is filled in by the custom endpoint:
- Select whether to copy the contents of the lists on new entities.
- Select whether to also copy content with unique permissions. The content will inherit permissions from the target list upon copying.
- Select whether to copy folders from the lists.
- If a list is copied with the 'Reset to template' option, all items in the list that has been created from a template will be created based on the template and not as a copy from the source entity. This relates to templates created using Template Management, which you can read more about in this article.
- Select which fields should be affected by the time displacement of the copied entity. Only Date and Time fields can be selected.
- Select which fields should be excluded from being time displaced on the copied entity. All field types can be selected here. The value for the excluded fields will not be copied from template or source item. The value will be set to the the default value for the fields. An example of this could be a status field on a Task list which, on the copied entity, should be set to it's default value instead of being copied from the value on the entity being copied.
- Select whether library selection should be locked in the Copy Entity wizard. If these checkers are enabled, users of the wizard will not be able to change the settings of which libraries and which content from libraries are copied, but will be locked to the configuration in these settings.
3.1. Example: Similar project
In the following example case, a Project Manager needs to create a Project entity for a new project he is opening. They have previously worked on a project with many similarities, e.g. tasks involved with the project. They therefore want to create the new project based on the previous project, including copying the original project's tasks to the new project.
The Project Manager decides to simply copy the previous project and time displace the new project based on a new completion date.
For this example, we could set up the following configuration of the Copy Entity Settings:
- We select the wizard to use for copying entities.
- For Time Displacement type, we select "Fixed", as we would like to input a new date to time displace to, this being the new completion date for the project.
- For Time Displacement Field we select the Completion date field.
- In this case, we do not need to copy relations from the original project to the new one, so we leave this option disabled.
- We would like for the Project Manager to edit some of the meta data of the new project, e.g. the project name, other team members etc. Therefore, we disable the option to skip the last step of the wizard.
- We select to enable copying of the contents of the Tasks list of the original project.
- For Time Displacement Field for the Tasks list, we select the Due Date field. This will make sure that the due date of the tasks created for the new project have their due date pushed by the same amount as the project.
- We elect to exclude the fields "Task Status", "% Complete", and "Start Date" from time displacement, as we wish to set these manually for the copied tasks.
- We then lock the configuration of the task list copy settings. Doing this makes sure the user cannot accidentally overlook items to copy, and ensure that the copy operation for tasks for projects always use the same configuration.
- Lastly we click the "Save" button to save the configuration.
3.2. Example: End-of-year roll of a case
In the following example case an accountant is making financial statements for clients. Each year's financial statement becomes a case with a set of tasks that needs to be completed. Every year, the financial statement from the previous year is copied. In this copy, all task deadlines must be displaced 1 year.
For this example, we could use the following configuration:
- In this example, we select a wizard called "Roll-over" to copy entities.
- For Time Displacement Type we select "Relative". We also lock this option, as we always want financial statement copies to use this time displacement type.
- For Time Displacement Field we select the Due Date.
- For Additional Time Displacement Fields we select the Start Date and the Completion Date from the entity.
- For Time Displacement Interval and Period we select 1 year. We also lock these options. This is done in order to comply with the requirements from the case description, where each financial statement copy, as well as tasks copied, should be time displaced by one year.
- We select to not skip the last step of the Roll-over wizard, as we want the user to be able to provide a new title for the new financial statement before creating the entity.
- For the Tasks list we enable copying of the contents.
- We also include content with unique permissions. The content will inherit permissions from the target list upon copying. If we also wanted to time displace the tasks' start dates, we could include that field here as well. In this case, we want to be able to set start dates for the tasks ourselves, as our time schedule may vary each year, but the due dates for the tasks remain the same.
- For Time Displacement Fields on the Tasks list, we select to displace the Due Date of tasks. These will be displaced according to the interval and period selected in pt. 27.
- We elect to exclude the start date, the % complete, and the status fields from time displacement. We do this because if tasks on the original financial statement are marked as complete, this should not be the case on the new entity. They should instead be set to their default values.
- We select to lock the Tasks list settings, as we always want tasks to be copied in the way configured.
This configuration makes it possible for a user of the system to select a Financial Statement and copy it to create a new entity for a new year. With each copy, the start date, the completion date, and the due date of the financial statement are time displaced by one year. All tasks which were registered on the original financial statement are copied to the new year statement, with their due dates time displaced by one year.
3.3. Creating a My Tools button for copying entities
If the wizard used for copying entities is enabled for use from the Command Bar, it can already be run from the business module list.
If it should be possible to run the wizard from an entity site, a My Tools button needs to be set up to run the wizard.
This section describes how to set up such a button in the My Tools panel.
- In the WorkPoint Administration, in the left side menu, click "My Tools".
- In the My Tools settings page, select the business module on which entities the button should appear. In this example, we want it to appear on entities on the "Financial Statement" business module.
- Click the section under which the new button should appear. In this example, we just want it to be shown as a button on the My Tool panel, not under any foldable menus, so we select the "Actions" section.
- Click "Add button" to add a new button to the selected section.
- We grant the button a title (try to describe what happens when the button is activated).
- We select a fitting icon for the action which the button executes.
- In the Type selector, we select "Open wizard".
- In the Wizard name selector, we select the wizard we want the button to open when activated. In our case, the Copy Entity wizard we created is called "Roll-over".
- For Business Module, we select the target business module to which the copied entity should be placed.
- To finish creating the button, we click the "Save" button.
In order for the button to be accessible, we need to clear the WorkPoint 365 browser cache:
- On the solution, click the Home button in the top left corner.
- In the bottom of the Home panel, click "Need help?".
- Click "Clear WorkPoint 365 browser cache".
The button now appears on all entity sites on the business module on which it was set up:
4. End User Guide
For an end user guide on the Copy Entity wit Time Displacement feature, please visit this article.
5. Notes
Note that the Copy Entity with Time Displacement feature can use different types of time displacement depending on the configuration of the feature. The options for time displacement are the following:
- Fixed: The copied entity is time displaced to a fixed date which can be set in the Copy Entity wizard during copying. All selected date fields of items copied along with the entity (e.g. tasks) are time displaced accordingly. An example of this could be an original project with a start date on the 21nd of October. If we create a copy of this entity and use a Fixed time displacement to the 14th of April, that would be time displacement of 175 days. The start date of the copied entity would then be the 14th of April and the selected date fields for items copied (e.g. Tasks) are time displaced by 175 days. Note that time displacement values can be negative (e.g. time displacement of -90 days).
- Relative: The copied entity is time displaced by a configurable amount relative to the original entity, e.g. 1 year relative to the original start date of a project.
Also note that the Copy Entity wizard can be executed from either the Command Bar on business module lists and from a My Tools button, depending on your setup.
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