New Learning : K2 Five

Hi everyone,

Thought of sharing my learning from my last project in K2. Hope it would be helpful.

Its not related to project specific but its from knowledge perspective.

 1) K2 Smartforms server error-

Issue: Its my k2 five project, found that one workflow threw exception like –‘Could not load file or assembly 'SourceCode.EventBus.MessageBusRecorder.dll' or one of its dependencies’.

On further troubleshoot tried to rerun existing workflow but same exception. Moreover we tried to create simple workflow (sending email) but it threw exception again. Thus we concluded that its not related to workflow but something from workflow server or smartobject server.

After going through all solution we found the solution

Cause: K2 was installed in the default location (C:\Program Files\K2\ for K2 Five and C:\Program Files (x86)\K2\ for K2 blackpearl), then uninstalled and reinstalled to a non-default folder. The paths to the event bus DLLs are not updated in the K2 database, causing the issue.

Workaround

To fix the issue, change the path to the DLLs in the K2 database to the correct folder.

Run this script against your K2 database to change the file path. Edit the script for your environment by substituting the {incorrect path} value and {correct path} value with those for your system. For example, REPLACE(asmFullName,'C:\Program Files\K2\Host Server\Bin\','E:\Program Files (x86)\K2\Host Server\Bin\')

Code Snippet:

UPDATE [K2].[Eventbus].[EventPolicyMapping]
SET asmFullName = REPLACE(asmFullName,'{incorrect path}','{correct path}')

2 2)     Issue: It came surprise to me that K2 does not behave correctly when you put ‘_’ in form name.

You can see below form has ‘_’ in form name.

We found below exception when tried to navigate the form with underscore(_) in name.

Workaround

We have created new form (deleted older and created new one) . New form don’t have any underscore character.

Note: I have not renamed the form because it will not change the system name of form.

Form below  without ‘_’ in form name.

3 3)     Issue :Checking at run time when need to save or update in sql database. (using rule designer)

This is not an issue but was challenging to implement from rule designer perspective.

We have application based on K2 smartforms and all forms are encapsulated with views. We need to check at runtime whether we need to decide that we need to add into sql table or update into table.

Workaround:

Here we have called read method of Smartobject providing unique column ID and get return column value (saved in variable to use later) .

At run time we checked if that return column have value or not if it has value  then we need to call update method of SO

Else call add method of SO.

Snippet from Rule designer –

It worked very well for my requirement. Its kind of tricky one with limitation of rule designer.

44)    Issue :Not able to check in the view  due to dependency errors in k2 smartforms/views

Explanation:-

Screenshot above its throwing exception stating dependency errors when try to check in the code.

Further its showing red icon in layout of the view as below-

This happens because I have updated sql table (deleted one column) and updated the smart object associated with that.

Since there was binding with the view and that columns was used in rule hence this was exception.

Workaround: This can be dealt by removing or updating the rule and by removing the references and delete the fields from the view .

Learning New: I tried above solution but it was not helping . I was able to remove rule but deleting the fields was not helping . It was like kind of stuck . I tried iisrest, k2 service restart etc.

Finally I won the battle by trying one trick. I changed the datasource of the view (from General tab) and then reverted back to original (please , ignore the warnings)

55)  K2 pattern.

Although its very simple but I thought to put it here because in most cases I have used MVC validation. K2 provides validation patterns . It can be used in Forms and views for validation purpose.

Couple of new validation added in k2 five are -

Custom pattern can be added based on regular expression. Please explore ‘add pattern’ above for more options.

66)      K2 Validation

This is kind making the view/forms control in edit mode based on condition as below

Eg – if specific parameter have some value then put view controls in edit mode. It will help developer when form need to be in edit mode or read only mode.

Here is advanced condition as below-

Rule can be applied as  –

And Configure as below-

77)   Changing system names for K2 forms/Views

Many times developer used to come scenario to rename view or forms or use Save as functionality.

In K2 world , renaming generally does not change references from back end but changes only display name.

Workaround: One way is to deleted older one and create new one but this is not everyone desire of . Hence another way is to update the references from back end.

Please use below pointer –

Here I have updated ‘Form’ table . You can see two columns – ‘Name’ and ‘displayname’ that need to target. Here ‘Name’ column is system name of the forms.

Hope all above may be helpful to you guys in sometime.