Agentry development - surveys

[Former Member]

Hi experts,

I have seen in the SAP CRM Service Manager and SAP Sales Manager apps that there are surveys. I'm wondering how they are built - are they static - pre-built screens with questions and answers? or they can be dynamically built upon information coming from a backend (table with questions and types of answers)?

That's a case with a custom app and custom Java backend.

Looking forward to your feedback!

Denis

Tags edited by: Michael Appleby

[jason_latko · Accepted solution]

Denis,

The screens are dynamically built with the survey information downloaded from SAP to the client in the form of complex tables.  The complex table data is then converted into object data when the surveys are accessed to be more easily dsiplayed in the various screen controls.  If you load one of those applications using the Agentry Test Environment (ATE) you can inspect the CT and Object collection structures to see how they are structured.

Jason Latko - Senior Product Developer at SAP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I don't have access to these apps in the ATE. I'm only looking at their demos on Android and Apple app stores.

It's still a puzzle to me how you build dynamically a screen if you have an answer of type radio button, for example, and then this answer is change to a text? Do you also have to fix the number of questions?

Cheers

Denis

[jason_latko · Accepted solution]

Denis,

The number of questions for each survey come down in the Complex Table.  The Survey entry actions in the application just loop over the questions and display them one by one until they have all been processed.

Not sure what you mean by a radio button answer being changed to text?  For a radio button answer, the screen dynamically displays all possible answers in a tile list control, allowing single-click to select a tile or multiple tiles.

Jason Latko - Senior Product Developer at SAP

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason,

Thanks again for your prompt replies!

I was able to get the project for SAP Sales Manager and reviewed it in the Agentry SDK in Eclipse. So, I see that you have complex tables for answer, question, answer item, etc. and the respective objects. Then you use detail screens as the main edit screen set uses a transaction and enable rule to show the right screen type...

I guess I'm missing something in the flow, but it looks quite complex. Was this needed because of the way surveys are built in SAP CRM or that's the normal approach on Agentry?

Cheers

Denis

[jason_latko · Accepted solution]

Denis,

I didn't work on the survey piece and haven't studied it much, but my answer to why the flow is complex would be both because of the nature of survey data and the many steps required in Agentry to handle replicating that data into objects for easier consumption.  Agentry screen controls are lacking when it comes to displaying or allowing manipulation of complex table data.  Complex tables cannot be a data source for a list tile control, only object data can serve that purpose.  Most of the complexity comes in replicating the complex table data into the object store before a survey is taken on the client so it can easily be displayed and manipulated with Agentry transactions.  That is the typical approach that is taken, involving multiple looping actions and transactions to get the data out of the CTs.  We store them initially in complex tables to handle the sheer volume of data because those are indexed and much more efficient, but then need to duplicate the data into objects before interacting with it on tile controls.  We handle reference objects in Service Manager in a similar way, keeping the thousands of potential records in a CT, then working with the data as replicated objects.

Jason Latko - Senior Product Developer at SAP.