Creating good Short Descriptions

Rule forms and data instance forms contain a Short Description field, also known as its label. Internally, the field corresponds to the @baseclass.pyLabel property.

Take a few seconds to choose the text you enter in this field as you save each rule. Your choice can enhance your personal productivity, the productivity of your development team, and affect the usability of your application.

While most Short Description text is less than 30 characters long, enter more than 30 characters when necessary. (The limit is 64 characters.)

In user prompts

Short Description text is often visible to application users. Choose text meaningful to such users:

• Flow action rules — Text appears as a selection in lists on user forms, or as button labels. See More about flow actions.
• Classes — The text of a Class form that corresponds to a class group appears as a work pool name on the Work Pool Selector in the Case Manager portal Dashboard. See work pool name, work pool, and More about Classes.
  
  The text of a Class form that corresponds to a case type appears in the Create menu on the Case Manager header.
  
• For Single Value properties, the text appears in certain Report Viewer and Report Wizard lists.

If a standard flow action, flow, or class rule meets your application needs except for its Short Description text, you can override only the Short Description with the Localized Label field in a field value rule.

Changes you make to the Short Description text of a checked-out rule may become visible only after you check in the rule.

In documentation

Enter a sentence or phrase that describes how you expect the rule to be used. You need not enter your name, the RuleSet, any key part, or the date, as these facts are present (and searchable) elsewhere in the rule.

The value you enter appears on reports, lists, and SmartPrompt ToolTips. Choose a value that helps you or others select a rule of interest from a possibly long list.

About the application Short Description

The Short Description text of an application rule appears in many places throughout Designer Studio. These include the current application on the Application menu, in the Switch Application menu list, in the application filter list on Application landing pages, and on the Application Overview landing page header. Enter a unique, meaningful name. Include a version number if users have access to multiple versions using the same description.

Supporting rule searches and Explorer displays

Choose Short Description text that support searches. Longer, specific words (such as Mortgage) are more useful when searching than common short words. To search for a rule based on its short description:

1. Perform any search.
2. From the results panel, select Rules, All Content , and Starts With.
3. Enter a new search in the form pyLabel:Text, where Text is the initial portion of the label in the rule you are searching for, containing no spaces or special characters. Enter the text in the exact case.
4. Press Enter.

Lookup Cache supports SmartPrompt ToolTip display

B-12483 Short Description text appears as a ToolTip on SmartPrompt displays, when the developer holds a pointer on a row of the selection list. (SmartPrompt displays are primarily accessed by developers, not by application users.)

In some cases, after you update the Short Description of a rule, an internal cache that supports SmartPrompt may become stale; the ToolTip display presents the prior value. To remedy this, delete the on-disk cache using the System Management application:

1. Select> System > Tools > System Management App to start the System Management application. Authentication may be required.
2. On the System Management application window, select a node. ALIBJ 5/16/06
3. Select the Advanced > ETier Static Content Management menu item.
4. Click Delete LookupList Cache.

PDN Resources

	lookup list, personal ruleset
	Choosing rule and data instance names

Designer Studio basics