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About Correspondence rules

Preview

C-2220 5.2 After you save the Correspondence form, click the Preview toolbar button (Preview) to view an approximate runtime display of the correspondence in the lower half of the workspace. If your clipboard contains pages that match those identified in the Pages & Classes tab, property values referenced in the correspondence rule appear in the display.

Examples and processing overview

For examples and additional information about correspondence, see these PDNPega Developer Network articles:

After generation, correspondence items to be sent out are processed in background periodically by the SendCorr agent in the Pega-ProCom RuleSet. See Understanding the Pega-ProCom agents.

Completed correspondence items are saved as instances of a Data-Corr- class, such as Data-Corr-Email or Data-Corr-Fax. In the normal case, when the correspondence is produced by flow processing, a Link-Attachment instance associates the Data-Corr- instance with the work object.

Standard flow actions

These standard flow actions support correspondence:

See Atlas — Standard flow actions

Standard activities

In flow rules, you can use the two standard Notify activities named Work.-NotifyAll and Work-NotifyAssignee for correspondence related to an assignment.

Use the standard utility activity named Work-.CorrNew to generate correspondence without any user interaction. When you use this activity to generate email correspondence, you can set parameters so that all work object attachments, or all attachments of one or more specified categories, become attachments to the email message. C-2132 Optionally, you can send the email to multiple TO: work parties, one or more CC: work parties, and one or more BCC: parties. R-19754 C-2118 SP6 You can associate a priority level of High or Low with a message, as expected by Microsoft Outlook. B-15024 SR-65

Advanced featureThree standard low-level activities support outgoing email. Typically, these are called only by other standard activities: B-15019

CautionIn most situations, use only the Work-.CorrNew activity, a notify activity, or a flow action such as @baseclass.SendCorrespondence rather than calling any of these three low-level activities directly. This approach assures that

Digitally signed email

Signed EmailYour application can send digitally signed email messages, providing assurance to the recipients. See How to send digitally signed email.

Fragments

As an alternative to correspondence rules, you can create correspondence fragments, rules in the Rule-Corr-Fragment rule type. Use fragments for standard text that can be used in many different correspondence rules of different Applies To classes.

For example, you can use a fragment for a standard greeting, introductory or closing paragraph, or footer. By using a fragment copied into the correspondence rule using a <pega:include> JSP tag, you can avoid rewriting and maintaining common text in multiple correspondence rules.

Formats

Because correspondence rules are supported by stream processing, you can reference HTML styles or cascading style sheets (CSS files) in a correspondence rule. CSS files can ensure consistency in fonts, font sizes, layout, and appearance, whether final output is formatted by Microsoft Word or by a browser. Typically, a CSS file is stored in a text file rule (Rule-File-Text rule type).

For example, you can use the CSS elements page-break-before and page-break-after to force page breaks in printed output. C-1509 For example, this inline style element forces a new page:

<H1 style="page-break-before:always">Summary</H1>

Temporary files on user workstations

Correspondence processing can start Microsoft Word 2000/XP/2003/2007 on the user workstation. It creates temporary files in the directory identified by the TEMP Environment variable, typically on the C: drive.

If the TEMP Environment variable does not exist or refers to a drive other than C:, Process Commander attempts to create a directory named C:\PegaTemp. If this is unsuccessful, it displays an error message and correspondence editing fails. Issue R-6909

Detecting missing properties

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx GRP-16765 GRP-16937 GRP-17196.

Java code display

When you save a correspondence rule, the system converts HTML and JSP tags (or directives) to Java source code. As a learning or debugging aid, you can review this Java code. B-21782 no Run button

C-1665Click the Show Java toolbar button (Show Java) to see to see the system-generated Java code that implements the correspondence rule. The window presents a read-only preview of the Java that implements this rule instance. This Java code is not identical to the Java that executes at runtime, which includes Java code inlined from other rule instances and reflects rules in the requestor's RuleSet list.

Parent class

Through directed inheritance, the immediate parent class of the Rule-Obj-Corr class (and of similar classes containing HTML text) is the Rule-Stream class, not the Rule-Obj- class.

Definitions attachment category, correspondence type, Correspondence Output Server, fragment, stream processing, verify
Related topics About Correspondence Fragment rules
About JSP tags
Property references in expressions
Include JSP tag
Property-Set-Corr method
Reference JSP tag
Standard rules Atlas — Standard correspondence rules

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