Generic Inquiries in a Customization Project: Limiting the DACs Available for Generic Inquiries

You can limit the list of data access classes (DACs) available for creating generic inquiries on the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form in the production environment. You will do this by making changes, adding them to a customization project in a development environment, and then publishing that customization project in the production environment. In the development environment, you should perform the following general steps:

  1. You create the GITables.xml configuration file to specify the Allowed and Hidden collections of masks for the full names of the DACs, as described in The Contents of the GITables.xml File.
  2. You save the configuration file to the App_Data folder of the website.
  3. You add the file to a customization project as a File item. (See To Add a Custom File to a Project for details.)

The platform automatically checks whether this file exists in the App_Data folder. If the customization project is published in the production environment, the platform applies the file content when a user selects a DAC for a generic inquiry on the Generic Inquiry form.

The Contents of the GITables.xml File

The GITables.xml configuration file is in XML format and includes the GITables element only. This element must include the Allowed section and can also contain the Hidden section. Each section is a collection of Table elements.

The Allowed collection specifies the list of DACs that are available for use in generic inquiries that are constructed on the Generic Inquiry (SM208000) form. If a DAC is not included in the Allowed collection, it does not appear in the list for selection on the Table tab of the form. You can also add the Hidden section to the configuration file. This section specifies the DACs you want to exclude from the list.

If a DAC is allowed and not hidden (as illustrated by the green area in the following diagram), it is included in the list of the DACs available for constructing generic inquiries on the Generic Inquiry form. Otherwise, the DAC is not displayed in this list of DACs.

Figure 1. The DACs that are available for constructing generic inquiries


Each Table element of the Allowed and Hidden sections contains the FullName attribute, which specifies the DAC name or the mask for a set of DACs.

The attribute value is a string that can contain the following wildcard characters:

  • An asterisk (*), which matches any number of characters (or no characters)
  • A question mark (?), which matches exactly one character

The example below shows how to exclude the DACs by using the PX.Objects.CR.BAccount and PX.*Contact* masks.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GITables>
	<Hidden>
		<Table FullName="PX.Objects.CR.BAccount" />
		<Table FullName="PX.*Contact*" />
	</Hidden>
	<Allowed>
		<Table FullName="*" />
	</Allowed>
</GITables>

Based on the mask with Contact, users will not be able to use any DACs that contain the word Contact in the DAC name, such as the PX.Objects.CR.Contact DAC, in their generic inquiries.

To limit the list of DACs by using only the Allowed collection, you can empty or remove the Hidden section. The following example shows how to include only the DACs that match the PX.Objects.IN.* mask.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GITables>
	<Allowed>
		<Table FullName="PX.Objects.IN.*" />
	</Allowed>
</GITables>