Post Comment to Feed Entry Smart Service

Overview

The Post Comment to Feed Entry Smart Service allows you to automatically publish text originally entered by users outside of Tempo in a process application as a comment on a specified Tempo feed entry. For example, when a user approves a task, you can configure this smart service to display any text entered by the user while approving the task as a comment linked to the approved task's Tempo event.

• The smart service posts comments to Tempo messages, events, and system events; they cannot post to hazards.
• The same notifications sent when a user directly enters a comment to the Tempo interface trigger when this smart service generates a comment.
  • See also: Feed Notifications
• Once posted, comments can only be deleted by system administrators.

Smart Service Best Practices

Since the posted comment comes from the attributed author and not necessarily the Tempo user linked to the posted comment, use caution when implementing this smart service to avoid posting statements that misrepresent the Tempo user.

• Comments should originate unaltered from the text entered by the attributed author (for example, text entered in a form submitted by that person).
• Include text on the associated application object informing users their text entry will post as a Tempo comment to avoid unwanted comment posts.

Do not use this smart service to post auto-generated updates or recurring events because it violates the intent of Tempo, which is to be a social interface for collaboration.

Do not use this smart service with process models that can be completed by a large number of users.

• The comment history for the feed entry can become excessive and obtrusive to the main feed.
• Depending on a user's notification settings, they could receive a surplus of notification emails each time another user completes the process model.

Permissions needed

The author for the smart service must have permission to post a comment to the specified feed entry. Attempting to complete this task without the proper user rights generates an error message for the process administrator and pauses the process.

Properties

• Category: Social

• Icon:

• Assignment Options - Always Unattended

See also: Smart Services

Configuration options

This section contains tab configuration details specific to this smart service. For more information about common configurations see the Process Node Properties page.

Data tab

Node inputs

Name	System Data Type	Required	Description
Entry ID	Text	X	This input specifies the feed entry to which the comment needs to be posted.
Message	Text	X	The text of the comment for this feed entry, either entered manually or determined by a process variable, rule, or constant entered through the Expression Editor. The maxiumum is 4,000 bytes. If you leave the message parameter blank or the input contains more than 4,000 bytes, the activity is cancelled by exception at runtime. See also: Tempo Best Practices regarding message content.
Author	User		The user displayed as author of the comment. If a user is not specified, the activity takes the user context listed on the Assignment tab. If the specified user does not have permission, as determined by security, to post a comment to the specified feed entry, the activity is paused by exception at runtime. NOTE: Appian recommends you not use the Administrator account as the User for the attribution of the post. See also: Tempo Best Practices</li>

Node outputs

Name	System Data Type	Description
Comment Id	Text	The ID of the newly created feed entry comment.

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