Masterclass Summary:
In this Supercharged! Masterclass Jordan takes a look at a simple way of adding in date fields to your Podio app and then “stamping” the date/time based on the changes of a category field. This is a really important feature to understand to help you create better transparency on your process management timeframes.
In this masterclass you’ll learn:
- How to use a category field to track a process stage
- How to use a hidden if empty field option to keep your app clean
- How to automate the current date & time being entered into a date field based on a Podio automation
- How to use a “If” sanity check action inside of your Citrix PWA statement
Transcript
Narrator 0:01
You’re watching another supercharged masterclass with Jordan Samuel Fleming your opportunity to learn the ins and outs of Podio design and development from one of the top Podio partners in the world.
Jordan Fleming 0:14
Hey everybody, it’s Jordan Fleming with another supercharged masterclass. Today, I’m going to dive into something that you’re probably going to want to use in a lot of your apps, where particularly sales ones or ones we are tracking performance or a process of some kind. And that is date and time stamping a process step on the items so that you can track when each kind of part of the process was completed.
Now, you can get very complex with this start times end times, you know, start date end dates, do a lot of things. In this example, I’m gonna make it very, very simple and show you how we can use a simple Category field to move ourselves through process. And each time we move through the process, we are going to date and timestamp when we click that Process button, so that we haven’t locked in there. Very simple thing to do, you can make it very complex to suit your needs. But I’m going to show you in Podio right now, let’s dive in.
Okay, here we are in Podio, in my sort of demo, scratch workspace, and I’ve got this test app here. And if we take a look at it, as a couple things, I want to show you on this, first of all, we’ve got this process, right, so let me create a brand new item here. And I’m gonna say test, I’m gonna say it is supercharged podcast is the person. And I’m gonna go ahead and save. Now went away, I’ve got a flow on here, as you can see on the right, which is going to start the process to set it to waiting to start. And it’s going to put in those two core fields that I recommend you put in every app, check that video out. And there’s a couple hidden fields here.
So if I just open up the bottom, you can see that there’s some hidden if empty fields. Now hidden for empty fields are a really good way of keeping your app clean, and only showing them when there’s data in them. And it works particularly well for this type of a flow. Because what we’ve got is we’ve got a process that has a start, middle and end. And we’ve got date and time started date and time middle date night end, right.
So essentially, we want to know that when we click start, we want to embed that date and time of when we did it to this field. When we click middle, we want to embed it to this field and end to this field. So if I go back and I just reload this item that should be hidden. Now if I click start…
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… it should have if I refresh the screen, there you go. So I clicked start, you can see here it automatically by workflow, it filled in the date and time of when I did this. Fantastic.
And it also now that I’ve refreshed the screen, it is showing that hidden field because there’s data in it, right and if I go to middle, it’s going to do the exact same thing. It is going to put the middle data in there. There you go 1406. And it is now showing that field. So how does this all work?
Well, I’m gonna pop over to Citrix PWA and take a look at this particular flow. So it’s an update flow, which you’ll be familiar with by now. So in order to update flow, where the filter is, okay, this is going to run when the item is updated. And when the field process this one is changed but I’m not doing the different model the modifier which I’ve done in a bunch of the flows that have shown you so far, where I say the value up here, instead, I’m doing some if statements and this is a really, you know, this is where I tend to write all my flows, because it just allows you to do one flow from many variables.
And you can get quite complex do nested IF statements you know if this and if this and if this do it. So it can get quite complex. But in this case, it’s very simple. I’m simply saying hey, if this item is updated, and the field process has changed, I’m going to look at some if statements if that field process now equals to start, do this, if it now equals to me Don’t do this. And we’re going to show you how to fill in the last one, which is and so how does that actually work? Well, first of all, I’m going to say, Okay, if, and I’m going to grab the token for that field, which was processed, right, boom.
So if that field, we know we’re working on this, now I want it to equal to something. So I’m saying, if the field is equal to this, I want you to do this thing. And equal in the globey flow, markdown language is to equal sign. So that means equal, does not equal for your for future reference is exclamation mark equal, that is does not equal. In this case, we want it to equal. So the test processes the field equals space, open quotes, because we’re going to put a value in. And the last value here is capital E, and D, you got to pay attention, and not have any spelling mistakes or extra spaces in all or anything like that. So E and D, boom, right. And this should now read false, because on the item that we’re looking at, it doesn’t on the most recent item.
And that’s great. Now, but we have this if and then endif statement. And now we need something to go in the middle, which is, well, what do we want to do. So I’m going to add in another block to the middle, and I’m going to do a update. So item update, block. So you can see here, if test process equals to start, update that specific start field with the current date and time. If it’s middle, do it to the middle. And now finally, if it’s end, I’m going to make an hook event as usual. And I’m going to say do the date and time of end where the value equals to current date and time. That’s all it needs. So it’s that simple. But it’s a really nice kind of this is a good demonstration of both the F and N def statement. So being able to have a rather than building three flows that says, Okay, if process has changed, and process equals start, do this, let’s build another flow.
Instead, I can just go hey, man, if the process field has changed, whatever the value, I’ve got my options here. I do, if it’s this, do this, and end, if it’s that, do that, and end, and the system will then verify which of these if statements is correct. Very simple flow, I’m gonna save. And now that we’ve finished the end, one, I should be able to come back here and click End, which previously had nothing in that flow. So I want to show you how to do it. And I’ll refresh the page.
And oh, so he hasn’t worked. Let’s take a look at the usually opened up. What did I say? Check your Oh, what a great thing on the masterclass. I’m not really recording this. That’s brilliant. It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? It didn’t work. Because I didn’t check my that it was identical, did it? No it didn’t. I capitals. Let’s save it again. And now unfortunately, I’m going to just knock this off. So there’s nothing. And I’m going to turn it again. And refresh. Who I still get my globiflow jacket, my Citrix PWA jacket. But what a great example of how careful you have to be here I am doing a video for you guys. And I did something as simple as not checked by capslock was on. And that is why that didn’t work. How like a frustrating but brilliant. That’s why you have to pay attention to doing it. So it’s very simple process, very simple thing I’ve demonstrated, but also a really powerful one.
So here, I’ve just date and time stamped, some key things that happen on this item. And I can do it in the background. And if I don’t want anyone to ever see it, I can hide those fields. So rather than just hidden with empty, I’m gonna go ahead and say the date and time event is always hidden. Right? And now I can’t see it, but the data is there, which means that nobody can accidentally alter it. I’ll do some other masterclass videos on that. But I hope you found that useful. As I say I use that kind of flow all the time being able to date and timestamp something. It also showed you the if statements and how easy it is to apply them and showed you where you may want to use the hidden of empty versus the hidden all the time. Some good hints and tips on that as well.
I hope you liked it. If you like dislike disagree, you want me to talk about anything in particular do drop a comment here on the website or on the YouTube channel. While you’re there do hit the subscribe button to make sure that you get notified whenever I do brand new videos. And of course head over to whatever podcast platform you use, find supercharged and have like, give it a rating. Listen to it. Come on as a guest help us spread the gospel of Podio thanks for watching.
Narrator 10:00
Thanks for watching this Supercharged masterclass with Jordan Samuel Fleming CEO of smartphone don’t forget to hit the subscribe button on our YouTube channel to be notified of new podcast episodes Podio masterclasses and in depth Podio extension reviews
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