How to implement Decision Action in .net

Automise Discussion
1

I want to write an action that, depending on its result, either runs its child actions or skips them. I have searched in every documentation that I found, but I just could not figure out how to implement the Decision Action type in .NET.

Best regards,
Robin

2

Hi Robin

Before you go down the path of creating custom actions, are you sure you cannot do what you need with the built in actions?

Things to investigate :

  • Execute Program action - the result of action can be stored in a variable, which can then be used with an If…Then action to determine whether to execute child actions.

  • Run Script Action - which can set Automise variables (ATVariables.Variable or ATVariables[“name”] depending on the language) - again paired with the If…Then action.

To create a decsion action in .net you just create a regular standard action - the result of the Execute method determines if the child actions will run or not. If you want to fail the action then throw an exception.

3

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for the fast response. I have written a custom action that interacts with the RestAPI of a device, and when setting the action type to ‘standard action,’ it runs just fine. Currently, I am using the result of the action for control flow with an ‘If previous action failed’ after it. Now, when I set the action type to ‘Decision Action’ and try to run it, I get a validation error, even though when debugging and setting a breakpoint in the validation part of the code, it never reaches it, the error in automise is shown in the picture.
grafik

Best regards,
Robin

4

Hi Robin

The validation error is a bug - I was able to reproduce that here. When I turn validation off (options\Automise\validation) the action works - mostly.

I say mostly because it appears error handling is broken - throwing an exception just makes the decision false and doesn’t actually fail the action. I will look into whether that can be fixed without any api changes.

Either way we’ll upload a new build with at least the validation fix once further investigation is completed.

5

This build fixes the validation issue and also allows errors thrown in the action to fail the action.

https://downloads.finalbuilder.com/downloads/automise/500/AT500_1539.exe
https://downloads.finalbuilder.com/downloads/automise/500/ATCMD500_1539.exe
https://downloads.finalbuilder.com/downloads/automise/500/AutomiseRunner500_1539.exe