Post Event to Feed Smart Service

Overview

The Post Event to Feed Smart Service allows you to automatically publish events to the News feed.

When publishing feed information from your process, you can have the information appear as being attributed to a given system or associated with a specific user.

Use this activity when you want the information to list that it was posted by a specific user. Use the Post System Event to Feed Smart Service when you want the information to list that it was posted by the system or a specific application.

You can specify the user context for the activity on the Assignment Tab.

Example use case

You have an application that manages a sales cycle with a process that records information on product demonstrations for potential clients.

When the Account Representative starts a product demo, he/she updates the status of the demo to "In Progress". Using this smart service, you can have an event feed entry generated automatically when the Account Representative updates this status so other staff members can see additional information on the potential client including the main focus of the demonstration and who is conducting the demonstration.

Permissions needed

The user designated to run this smart service must have permission to post an entry to the specified feed.

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
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Assignment Options - Always Unattended

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	Data Type	Required	Multiple	Description
Feed	Feed	Yes	No	Specifies a subscription feed to use when posting the event. You must define at least one feed in the application before configuring this smart service. See also: Feeds
Message	Text	Yes	No	The message text of the feed entry for this event, 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 canceled by exception at runtime. See also: Message Guidelines
Attachments	Document	No	Yes	The file(s) to attach to the feed event. If any viewer of the event does not have access to view a file or a file is deleted, the event displays with the files the viewer can access and a message indicating how many files he/she could not see. See also: Folder and Document Management
Record Tags	Record Identifier	No	Yes	The records to tag to the event. If any viewer of the event does not have access to view a record or a record is deleted, a record tag is not displayed for that record.
User	User	No	No	The actor associated with this event. If a user is not specified, the activity takes the user context listed on the Assignment tab. If the specified user is not included in the users and groups targeted by a message, this user can also view the posted event due to their association with the posting. NOTE: Appian recommends you not use the Administrator account as the User for the attribution of the post. See also: Tempo Best Practices
Viewers	Users and Groups	No	Yes	The selected users and members of the selected groups who can see the feed entry for this event. You can enter the value as an expression. When the input is left unspecified, all users can view the entry. If you specify a user/group that cannot be found at runtime, the activity is canceled by exception. If you select a personal group for targeting, the group name is hidden from non-administrators.
Personalization Group	Group	No	No	A group to be associated with the event for use in subscription personalization. If the value of the Personalization Group that you specify can't be found at runtime (such as when the group is deleted, or when an invalid expression is used) the activity is cancelled by exception.
Action Process	Process Model	No	No	An action the users can start when they click the link called Open a Case on the feed entry when this input is configured. The link only displays if you configure this input. See also: Enabling users to open a case from the feed entry
Action Instructions	Text	No	No	The instructions displayed as a tooltip when a user rests their pointer on the Open a Case link.
Event Data	LabelValue (CDT)	No	Yes	Additional details regarding the posted event. The list of label value entries must be mapped from a multiple-value process variable that is populated by other activities in your process model. See also: Populating Event Data Inputs

Node outputs

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

Usage considerations

Enabling users to open a case from the feed entry

Event postings made by the Post Event to Feed Smart Service provide users the additional option to Open a Case by clicking a link on the post.

When you click the link, you are prompted to add optional instructions.
A case opened message appears as a comment to the event, listing the user who opened a case, when it was opened, and any additional comments that were entered.
You cannot directly pass data from the process that posted an event to the new process that is started.
Instructions or additional details can be provided by the user when the user opens a case (starts the process).

You can enable this feature for your users by configuring the proper smart services and target process model.

Configuring a case management target process

To configure a case management target process:

Create a process model designed to handle the issue.
- The process model should not include a process start form.
- Process start forms are ignored when a process is started using an Open a Case link.
Assign Viewer rights to the process model for the intended users.
Assign a task to the user or group you want to follow up on the case that is opened by a user.
Within that task, display the notes or comments entered by the user by including a read-only text field that displays the pv!feedActionNotes from the process that was started. You can access this parameter by referencing it within an expression.
When you've build your case management process, be sure to Save & Publish the process model to enable it as a target action.

Configuring the smart services

To configure the smart services:

On the Data tab, click the Action Process node input.
Click the Browse button next to the Value field.
Select a published process model.

Note:

Any instructions entered by the user are passed to the process that is started using the pp!feedActionNotes parameter.
If users don't have Initiator rights for the selected process model, they still see the Open a case link. In such cases, an error is displayed when the user clicks the link.
If the process model you specify is not found when the user clicks the link, an error is displayed.

Case management parameters

The following reserved parameters are populated automatically when a process is started by opening a case.

You must create these parameters individually within your target process model.

Parameter	System Data Type	Description
`pv!feedEntryId`	Text	The entry ID of the Tempo feed event that provided the context for opening a case.
`pv!feedMessage`	Text	The feed entry text of the Tempo feed event that provided the context for opening a case.
`pv!feedUser`	Text or User	The user ID of the process actor associated with posting the feed entry.
`pv!feedPubTime`	Date and Time	The publication timestamp of the feed entry.
`pv!feedActionNotes`	Text	The optional information entered by the user when opening the case.

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