PDF Generation in Geneva

[syed_faheem]

This document will cover details on PDF Generator Plugin provided in Geneva as well as Enhancement that I have made to this solution.

1. PDF Generator Plugin

PDF generation feature has been added in Geneva as plugin, which provides the ability to generate PDF documents as per your own layout and data.

PDF Generator New in Geneva application

com.snc.pdf_generator

Provides a tool to generate PDF documents.

This plugin has been used in Human Resources application to generate 'Employee Verification Letters' which is covered in Configure the employment verification letter and Complete an employment verification request articles in Geneva documentation.

However documentation lacks the details on use of this plugin for any other custom application or OOTB tables i.e. Incidents etc.

If you have been familiar with walter.brame's (fantastic) PDF Generator, this plugin is based on the same scripts. Basically this plugin provides you the ability to generate PDF of any document i.e. Letter which an end user can draft & design in ServiceNow with the data coming form record it is related to.

In order to utilize this for your application, you will need to create a script include similar to 'GeneralHRForm' and a document template table similar to 'hr_document_template' (both introduced with HR application in Geneva).

In Script Include you would be able to configure various aspects of this solution including variables which need to be replaced while PDF generation and document template table keeps all the customized templates which you could format as per your need using HTML editor.

Figure 1 - HR Document Template Record

Figure 2 - PDF Letter Generated

This solution has some limitations around variables you could use in templates as well as some other aspects. While working on it for a customer I have come up with some enhancements, which I would like to share with you in next section.

2. Enhancements

If you are looking to implement PDF letter generation functionality using solution provided for 'Employee Verification Letter' in HR Application, you would find few limitations and I have developed following enhancements to it.

a)       Dynamic Variables Parsing

Problem

When you are configuring document template you would notice that variables are being entered as {{Name]}} or {{Position}}. These variables are parsed by following method in 'GeneralHRForm' script include.

Figure 3 - OOTB Script Include Method

parseBody : function(docBody, instance){
                                   var parsedBody = docBody;
                                   var gr = new GlideRecord(this.tableName);
                                   gr.get(this.tableId);
                                   var date = gs.now();
                         parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Date\}\}/gi, date);
                         parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Name\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.name);
                         parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Position\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.position.position);
                         parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Time type\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.time_type.getDisplayValue());
                         parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Employment start date\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.employment_start_date);                                                     
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Work email\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.work_email);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Work phone\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.work_phone);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Prefix\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.introduction);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Nationality\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.nationality);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Manager\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.manager.name);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Department\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.department.name);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Employee number\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.employee_number);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Employment status\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.employment_status);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Employment type\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.employment_type);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\{\{Gender\}\}/gi, gr.hr_profile.gender);
                                   // convert to the right image path 
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\/sys_attachment.do\?sys_id=(\w{32})/gi, '/$1.iix');
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\/sys_attachment.do\?sys_id=(\w{32})/gi, '/$1.iix');
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/src="\//gi, 'src="' + instance);
                                   return parsedBody;
                 },                             

You would notice that variable parsing is hard-coded in the method, which poses a limitation that user can only use variables that have parsing code available in script include method 'parseBody'. Any new variable would require code change and may result in recurring code maintenance job for System Administrators.

Solution

For this solution lets consider we are developing Letter generation solution for an Incident record and have already created following script include and document template table.

Script Include: GeneralIncidentForm

Document template table: x_snc_letters_letter_template

Now we need to follow below steps:

Step 1: Add a new field called 'Table' to the document template form as below:

Figure 4 - Adding table field

         

Step 2: Changed field type for 'Body' field from 'HTML Translated' to 'HTML Script'.

Figure 5 - Body field type change

Step 3: Set 'Use dependent field' to checked and 'Dependent field' to 'Table' (i.e. new field you created)

Figure 6 - Setting dependent field

This will change your form to look like below:

Figure 7 - Enhanced document template form

This form would now provide the similar functionality as we have for creating email templates i.e.

• You can select table from the table dropdown, i.e. in this case 'Incident'
• 'Select variable' section on right of 'Body' field populates all the fields from Incident table (which was selected in table field above).
• You can select any field from variable list, which would be added to template body.
• You can drill down / dot-walk to a lower level of field and add it to the body.
• Notice that variables are now enclosed in ${}.

Step 4: Now we need to modify script include to parse these variables dynamically. Replace the parseBody method with code given below:

Figure 8 - Enhanced Script Include Method

parseBody : function(docBody, instance){
                                   var parsedBody = docBody;
                                   var gr = new GlideRecord(this.tableName);
                                   gr.get(this.tableId);
                                   var date = gs.now();
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\$\{date\}/gi, date);
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\$\{letterid\}/gi, this.letterid);
                                   // parsing of variables dynamically
                                   var sampleString=docBody.toString();
                                   var reg = new SNC.Regex('/\\$\\{(.*?)\\}/i');
                                   var match = reg.match(sampleString);
                                   var count =0;
                                   var variables = [];
                                   var values = [];
                                   var tmpValue;
                                   while (match != null) {
                                                     variables.push(match.toString().substring(match.toString().indexOf(',')+1));
                                                     match = reg.match();
                                                     values.push(variables[count]);
                                                     if(gr.getDisplayValue(values[count])==null || JSUtil.nil(gr.getDisplayValue(values[count]))){
                                                                       tmpValue='';
                                                     }
                                                     else
                                                                       {
                                                                       tmpValue=gr.getDisplayValue(values[count]);
                                                     }
                                                     parsedBody = parsedBody.replace('${'+variables[count]+'}', tmpValue);
                                                     count++;
                                   }
                                   // convert to the right image path
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\/sys_attachment.do\?sys_id=(\w{32})/gi, '/$1.iix');
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/\/sys_attachment.do\?sys_id=(\w{32})/gi, '/$1.iix');
                                   parsedBody = parsedBody.replace(/src="\//gi, 'src="' + instance);
                                   return parsedBody;
                 },                               

And when you generate PDF, solution would be able to parse any variable you have included in the document template.

Here is the out put.

Figure 9 - Final generated letter

b)       Miscellaneous enhancements

Following minor enhancements were also made and are included in attached script include code.

        i) Removal of hard coded references for template table and source table form script include and passing them as parameter.

        ii) Setting file name in script include as you like.

        iii) and couple of more.

Apart from this I have also developed a solution of 'Letters & Correspondence Management' which covers:

• Creating draft letter, approval and then generation of PDF
• Having ability to select from multiple pre-drafted letter templates
• Ability to generate latter / template with data coming from any ServiceNow table.
• and more.

This solution will be available on Share portal soon.

Please share your feedback on this solution and how could this be improved.

Message was edited by: Syed Faheem

[amitpatil]

Hi Syed,

The HTML script type is not available OOB as a field type from object class. There are ways to make it available although trying that does not always work- I tried this on my personal dev instance and it corrupted the body field on the custom form ( Letters Template)

Anything I put inside the body does not get saved .

Regards,

Amit

[syed_faheem]

Hi Amit,

Try deleting the field and recreate it.

[amitpatil]

Thanks Syed.

After I faced this issue I deleted the custom table and created a new one which extends the existing hr_document_template table. After this I made the changes you suggested. The form is ok now. I just need to get the pdf generated now .I have imported the script include you wrote ( as part of the zip file ) . I tried calling it using a UI action on incident although it does not generate the PDF.

Can you please share the UI action as well?

Thanks ,

Amit

[syed_faheem]

Hi Amit,

Please use below code to call script include in your UI action.

// setting parameter values

var tempTable='x_snc_letters_letter_template';

var tempName='Incident Notification Letter';

var sourceTable= current.getTableName();

// calling script include function

global.GeneralIncidentForm.generate(current.sys_id, sourceTable, tempTable, tempName);

action.setRedirectURL(current);