There are many occasions when you need to set the value of a field based upon the value of one or more fields. Contemporary products typically achieve this via modifying the programming language. ExtraView allows you to set field values using this administrative feature. Field values can be set at different points in the process.

Business rules are also used to link together values from different business areas, creating relationships between different Business Areas. For example, a relationship can be created to populate a set of fields on a field within a Customer Issue business area, based upon the value of a customer name created in business area that contains a list of customers.

Email rules can also be created, giving fine control over who will receive email upon the creation or updating an issue. The default notification scheme in ExtraView will send email to any user whose name appears on a form, and to members of any interest list. Email rules can complement or replace this arrangement, and give precise control over the notification process. For example, you might want to send notification to a user, only when the Status changes to a specific value, or if the Status changes.

When a rule executes depends on the rule type.

1. Load Rules are executed prior to the Screen being entered the first time. An example of this would be:

   How do I set the value of a user field such as ASSIGNED_TO to the current user’s name?

   if (AREA="Contracts" && SCREEN_NAME='ADD') {
   ASSIGNED_TO=USER;}

2. Onchange Rules are executed when a rule that refers to a field value on an add or edit screen is changed by the user. An example of this would be:

   How do I set the value of a field within an onchange rule?

   if (FIELD_NAME.{changed}) {
   OTHER_FIELD = FIELD_NAME;}

3. Database Rules (preupdate and postupdate) are executed just prior to adding or updating a record and just after adding or updating a record.
4. Email Rules are executed on refreshes to display the email list at the screen bottom, and as part of the add/update to actually generate the notification to the users. Note that email rules are only used to add email notification, not to do value assignments to fields.
5. Clone Rules are executed after an issue has been cloned, but before it is written to the database. You may therefore make further changes to the record within the script, and these changes will be saved as part of the clone rule.