Setting property – Echo method – explanation

 In previous post of series we used Echo Method to set property of property set in workflow. It is very important to understand how the second step in workflow is working because Echo method is nothing but manipulating input arguments and output arguments with help of dot notation. 

In the 2nd Step I am doing 3 things.

1. Sending SiebelMessage as Input argument
2. Setting values of 3 properties of SiebelMessage using dot notation
3. Getting SiebelMessage in Output Arguments

1st and 3rd points are pretty simple to understand as we already know Echo method copies its inputs to outputs so when I send SiebelMessage as Input, I get Siebel Message as Output.

2nd point is where all the trick is. You need to reach the property using dot notation before you can actually set it. Here is what I did to create the dot notation string for this example.

After creating first step of the workflow I simulated the workflow

Once the first step was successfully simulated I opened the watch window (Shift+F9) without stopping the simulation.  In watch window I could see the SMessage process property has been successfully populated with SiebelMessage as shown below.

Then I just clicked on the + sign against SiebelMessage process property repeatedly until I could see properties of Quote IC and my watch window looked like

Now, I know that to reach Account property (or any property of Quote IC) I have to traverse the propertyset using following expression: SiebelMessage.ListOfQuote.Quote.desired property

And if you would like to set properties of a child IC then you just need to extend this expression to something like: SiebelMessage.ListOfQuote.Quote.ListOfQuote Item.Quote Item.Property Name

I hope I am able to make it simple enough for you to understand but if you still have some doubts then I am sure as we go through other examples and with a bit of practice it will become clear