“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.”
— George Eliot
Well, it turns out that creating a group was not nearly as challenging as reading a group that already exists. I had already started pulling the code out of the widget proper and stuffing it into my accompanying Script Include, so I went ahead and kept that in there, but it’s pretty vanilla stuff. I also tossed in the code to verify group membership, which is also pretty vanilla stuff, so the resulting collection now includes functions to read the group profile, to create a new group, and to join the group if needed.
var SnhFeedbackUtils = Class.create();
SnhFeedbackUtils.prototype = {
initialize: function() {
},
getGroupID: function(table, sys_id) {
var groupId = null;
var grp = new GlideRecord('live_group_profile');
grp.addQuery('table', table);
grp.addQuery('document', sys_id);
grp.query();
if (grp.next()) {
groupId = grp.getValue('sys_id');
}
if (!groupId) {
gs.getUser().setPreference('snh.live.group.read.authorization', 'true');
grp = new GlideRecord('live_group_profile');
grp.setWorkflow(false);
grp.addQuery('table', table);
grp.addQuery('document', sys_id);
grp.query();
if (grp.next()) {
groupId = grp.getValue('sys_id');
}
gs.getUser().setPreference('snh.live.group.read.authorization', null);
}
return groupId;
},
createGroup: function(table, sys_id, name, description) {
var conv = new GlideRecord('live_group_profile');
conv.initialize();
conv.setWorkflow(false);
conv.document_group = true;
conv.table = table;
conv.document = sys_id;
conv.name = name;
conv.short_description = description;
conv.insert();
return conv.getValue('sys_id');
},
ensureGroupMembership: function(groupId, liveProfileId) {
var mbr = new GlideRecord('live_group_member');
mbr.addQuery('group', groupId);
mbr.addQuery('member', liveProfileId);
mbr.query();
if (!mbr.next()) {
mbr.initialize();
mbr.group = groupId;
mbr.member = liveProfileId;
mbr.insert();
}
},
type: 'SnhFeedbackUtils'
};
Originally, I had the code to add the person to the group upon reading the feedback, but it turns out that you don’t really have to be a member of the group to read the feedback, so I decided to pull that out and only add the person to the group if they left feedback of their own. This keeps people out of the group who were just looking, and limits the membership of the group to just those folks who have participated in the discussion. The final version of the server side script now looks like this:
(function() {
var feedbackUtils = new SnhFeedbackUtils();
data.feedback = [];
data.mention = '';
if (input && input.comment) {
data.table = input.table;
data.sys_id = input.sys_id;
data.convId = input.convId;
data.tableLabel = input.tableLabel;
data.recordLabel = input.recordLabel;
data.recordDesc = input.recordDesc;
data.mentionMap = input.mentionMap;
postComment(input.comment);
} else {
if (input) {
data.table = input.table;
data.sys_id = input.sys_id;
} else {
data.table = $sp.getParameter('table');
data.sys_id = $sp.getParameter('sys_id');
}
if (data.table && data.sys_id) {
var gr = new GlideRecord(data.table);
if (gr.isValid()) {
if (gr.get(data.sys_id)) {
data.tableLabel = gr.getLabel();
data.recordLabel = gr.getDisplayValue();
data.recordDesc = gr.getDisplayValue('short_description');
data.convId = feedbackUtils.getGroupID(data.table, data.sys_id);
if (data.convId) {
var fb = new GlideRecord('live_message');
fb.addQuery('group', data.convId);
fb.orderByDesc('sys_created_on');
fb.query();
while(fb.next()) {
var feedback = {};
feedback.userSysId = getUserSysId(fb.getValue('profile'));
feedback.userName = fb.getDisplayValue('profile');
feedback.dateTime = getTimeAgo(new GlideDateTime(fb.getValue('sys_created_on')));
feedback.comment = formatMentions(fb.getDisplayValue('message'));
data.feedback.push(feedback);
}
}
} else {
data.invalidRecord = true;
data.tableLabel = gr.getLabel();
data.recordLabel = '';
}
} else {
data.invalidTable = true;
data.tableLabel = data.table;
data.recordLabel = '';
}
} else {
data.invalidTable = true;
data.tableLabel = '';
data.recordLabel = '';
}
}
function postComment(comment) {
if (!data.convId) {
data.convId = feedbackUtils.createGroup(data.table, data.sys_id, data.recordLabel. data.recordDesc);
}
comment = comment.trim();
comment = expandMentions(comment, data.mentionMap['comment']);
var liveProfileId = getProfileSysId(gs.getUserID());
var fb = new GlideRecord('live_message');
fb.initialize();
fb.group = data.convId;
fb.profile = liveProfileId;
fb.message = comment;
fb.insert();
feedbackUtils.ensureGroupMembership(data.convId, liveProfileId);
}
function expandMentions(entryText, mentionIDMap) {
return entryText.replace(/@\[(.+?)\]/gi, function (mention) {
var response = mention;
var mentionedName = mention.substring(2, mention.length - 1);
if (mentionIDMap[mentionedName]) {
var liveProfileId = getProfileSysId(mentionIDMap[mentionedName]);
if (liveProfileId) {
response = "@[" + liveProfileId + ":" + mentionedName + "]";
}
}
return response;
});
}
function formatMentions(text) {
if (!text) {
text = '';
}
var regexMentionParts = /[\w\d\s/']+/gi;
text = text.replace(/@\[[\w\d\s]+:[\w\d\s/']+\]/gi, function (mention) {
var response = mention;
var mentionParts = mention.match(regexMentionParts);
if (mentionParts.length === 2) {
var liveProfileId = mentionParts[0];
var name = mentionParts[1];
response = '<a href="?id=user_profile&table=sys_user&sys_id=';
response += getUserSysId(liveProfileId);
response += '">@';
response += name;
response += '</a>';
}
return response;
});
return text.replace('\n', '<br/>');
}
function getUserSysId(liveProfileId) {
if (!data.userSysIdMap) {
data.userSysIdMap = {};
}
if (!data.userSysIdMap[liveProfileId]) {
fetchUserSysId(liveProfileId);
}
return data.userSysIdMap[liveProfileId];
}
function fetchUserSysId(liveProfileId) {
if (!data.profileSysIdMap) {
data.profileSysIdMap = {};
}
var lp = new GlideRecord('live_profile');
if (lp.get(liveProfileId)) {
var userSysId = lp.getValue('document');
data.userSysIdMap[liveProfileId] = userSysId;
data.profileSysIdMap[userSysId] = liveProfileId;
}
}
function getProfileSysId(userSysId) {
if (!data.profileSysIdMap) {
data.profileSysIdMap = {};
}
if (!data.profileSysIdMap[userSysId]) {
fetchProfileSysId(userSysId);
}
return data.profileSysIdMap[userSysId];
}
function fetchProfileSysId(userSysId) {
if (!data.userSysIdMap) {
data.userSysIdMap = {};
}
var lp = new GlideRecord('live_profile');
lp.addQuery('document', userSysId);
lp.query();
if (lp.next()) {
var liveProfileId = lp.getValue('sys_id');
data.userSysIdMap[liveProfileId] = userSysId;
data.profileSysIdMap[userSysId] = liveProfileId;
}
}
function getTimeAgo(glidedatetime) {
var response = '';
if (glidedatetime) {
var timeago = new GlideTimeAgo();
response = timeago.format(glidedatetime);
}
return response;
}
})();
With this latest version, anyone can now view the feedback, and anyone can post feedback. If you are the first person to post feedback on a particular item, then a new group gets created, and anyone who posts gets added to the group. Using the Live Feed infrastructure rather than creating my own tables may end up having some unforeseen adverse consequences, but for now, everything seems to have worked out as I had intended, so I’m calling it good enough. If you want to check it out yourself, here is the latest Update Set.
