Content tab on the List View form

In the Field field, you can specify only Single Value properties that correspond to optimized columns in a database table, not properties within the Storage Stream (BLOB) column. The selection criteria can depend on properties that are not Single Value mode, on properties that do not correspond to exposed columns, or on more sophisticated comparisons than provided by this tab. You can either:

• Complete fields on the Organize tab to supplement SQL operations defined on this tab.
• Expose properties as columns before referencing them here.

As a best practice for performance, using optimized (exposed) properties as criteria on this tab is preferred over selection with fields on the Organize tab. See PDN article How to detect and remedy the performance impact of Obj-List methods and list view reports.

For example, enter A for the first row, B for the second row, and so on. The Logic value must mention each label.

Specify a property reference for a comparison. For optimized properties defined in the class corresponding to the Applies To key part of this list view rule, start the property reference with a period. You can also identify fully qualified values on other clipboard pages that are always present on the clipboard, such as the requestor page or process page.

If the type of this property is TextEncrypted, special instructions apply to the Condition , Value , and Edit Input fields. See Property rules — Implementing and using the TextEncrypted Type.

If you specify pxObjClass and the Applies To key part of this list view rule is a framework class, at run time the report can use the corresponding implementation class, not the framework class, for comparisons and report content. This feature eliminates the need to copy each framework class-based list view report into the implementation class. To enable this capability, select the Report on Descendant Class Instances check box on this tab.

The system converts the Starts With, Ends With, and Contains comparison conditions to the standard SQL LIKE clause. Vendor-specific non-standard optimizations such as the Oracle CONTAINS feature are not used. If your application contains a list view report that requires such comparisons for tables with a very large number of rows, you can create a custom getContent activity that implements optimized SQL for retrieval.

To enable localization, select the Localize? check box on the HTML tab.

If this option is not selected, tests of the Field value and the Value value occur without case conversion. In this case, "a" is greater than "A" and also greater than "B".

In most cases, do not select this option. Select this check box only when necessary to obtain the rows of the report:

• If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Microsoft SQL Server, comparisons are always case-insensitive, so selecting this box does not affect the report contents, but might add processing.
• If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Oracle, IBM Db2, or most other database vendor products, selecting this box might affect which rows display in the report when values occur in mixed case. However, conversion to uppercase can significantly slow database processing.
• Case conversion is meaningful only for properties of type Text, Identifier or Password. Regardless of the database software, case conversion is not needed for numbers, dates, or text that contains only uppercase or lowercase characters.

See the PDN article How to correct the Case Insensitive warning for list view rules.

For example, assume the criteria in a row is:

If this list view rule runs when the value of Param.Letter is "C", this criteria limits the report to contain only instances in which the Lastname property value starts with the letter C. However, if the same rule runs again when the Param.Letter parameter has no value, this criteria is not applied. Instances with any Lastname value (or none) are selected.

If you do not want this default behavior, select the Use Null* box to force the Condition value to become Is Null when the Value value is blank at run time. In this example, the criteria is transformed to "Lastname is null".

If this list view rule runs on a web node as part of a composite application, the Use Null* setting is selected for all criteria.

For example, if the table contains four rows labeled A, B, C, and D, you can specify:

(A OR B OR C) AND D

This notation is the same as for the logic statement in when condition rules.

If you leave the Logic field blank, the system selects only instances for which all criteria rows are true.

When you select Custom, the form changes. On the Pages & Classes tab, identify the class and page name of a page that can hold prompt values. Create and reference a section rule in that class to collect each prompt value. Use the standard control Reporting_SymbolicDates if you want to allow the user to select a symbolic date for a Date or DateTime property. You can also identify a section to hold report output and criteria values.

• No Access — No part of this row is displayed.
• Read Only — The criteria row is displayed but users cannot alter the criteria.
• All Access — The criteria displays. Users can change the Field , Condition , and Value fields.
• Value Only — The criteria displays. Users can change the Value field. This is the default value.

When selected, at least one Criteria row must allow user input, and the Prompt Mode for at least one row must not be No Access or Read Only.

As a best practice, select this option if the report user is allowed to change report selection criteria. If not selected, the output for a single report might vary from user to user for no easily detected reason, because the users saved different criteria.

User selections apply to the Value field for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when Prompt user? is selected, and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter values.

The user's selections apply to the Value field for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when Prompt user? is selected, and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter values.

The user's selection at run time applies to the Value field, for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when Prompt user? is selected, and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter property names.

You can specify any property in the class, including aggregate properties. However, performance is better when the properties correspond to optimized columns in the PegaRULES database table.

Sorting that is specified in this field occurs within the database software and uses sort algorithms provided by the database software vendors. In unusual cases, the sort sequence might not match your needs. Additional sorting can occur later on the Pega Platform server, as specified in the Organize tab.

In most cases, accept the default getContent activity. Identify an activity that applies to the Embed-ListParams class to support processing of results from the database operation.

When reporting on rules, you can select getContentForProfile to limit rules to those that are accessible on the requestor's RuleSet list.

If you implement a custom activity for unusual reporting needs, specify a name other than getContent, and identify the activity in this field. Your activity can derive report contents from various means and sources, such as access to external databases through connector rules and calculations, but must place the results on the page named in the Content Page Name field and enforce the Maximum Value limit.

The standard activity getLookUpList, referenced in list view rules that support Designer Studio tools, performs specialized processing that bypasses or ignores many fields on the List View rule form. In most situations, if you copy a list view rule that calls getLookUpList, results are more predictable if you change the ActivityName to getContent in your list view rule.

A few list view capabilities are disabled when an activity other than getContent is used.

GetContent activities and external classes

The following additional considerations apply when an activity accesses instances of an external class:

• Design the activity to use an SQL alias named pxInsHandle for the key of the external table. For example:

SELECT CUSTOMERID as "pxInsHandle"

• Use only columns of the external table that conform to Pega Platform data type conventions, as follows:

This field is disabled and the value is ignored, when the Enable Paging? field on the Organize tab is selected.

You can set another default value for this field. Override the default Rule-Obj-ListView.pyDefault data transform, and set the initial value of the pyContentSource.pyMax property to the desired limit.

Found more than the maximum number of records (nnn)

where nnn is the Maximum Value limit. If all records are displayed, a record count displays.

Displaying nnnn records

If not selected, the message is disabled.

This option is enabled by default for new reports that you create, but disabled for reports created in versions prior to Version 5.5.

Select to have the embedded pages for the selected instances use lightweight lists for better performance. Leave unselected if the activity performs operations unsupported by lightweight lists, like forward chaining declarative processing, messaging, or value vetting. Refer to the PDN article About lightweight lists for more information.

Do not select this check box if the Edit In Excel option (on the Organize tab) is selected, or if your application requires processing of the embedded pages.

If this list view uses the facilities of the Join tab, you must select this option.

As a best practice, select this check box. This option can reduce memory requirements during processing.

Having the embedded pages use lightweight lists does not affect your ability to remove an embedded page completely (with the Obj-Filter or Page-Remove method).

Two Dynamic System Settings control the use of lightweight lists by the Obj-Browse method. Pega Platform and application rules each have a setting:

• clipboard/lightWeightList/enableForCorePRPCRules - This setting is true by default.
• clipboard/lightWeightList/enableForCustomerRules - This setting is false by default.

When true, these Dynamic System Settings override the Use Lightweight List check box setting on the Activity rule form.

Chose this option only if the Reports Database field is not blank and identifies a database table that is replicated from the production PegaRULES database. If the report uses JOIN operations that draw from multiple database tables, all tables must be in the same reports database.

When this option is selected, at run time the report uses data from the alternate database. Property pyUseAlternateDb is set to true on the top-level output Code-Pega-List page.

The system uses the Class and Privilege values with class inheritance to look for the privilege rule.