Create a Customer Record in an MDK App

Make sure that you have created an MDK app as described in Get Started with the Mobile Development Kit.

In this step, you will create the Create Customer page as a Form Cell Page. This type of page allows for form input style changes. The page will provide only a subset of items available on the Customer Detail page. You will add the fields that will be editable by the end-user.

Right click on the Pages folder | New MDK Page | Form Cell Page | Next.

A Form Cell Page is suitable for pages that generate new objects or modify existing objects. It includes a form cell container by default. You can add form sections, multiple containers or action controls to this page. Under each container section, you can add various container items.

You can find more details about Form Cell page.

Enter the Page Name CreateCustomer and click Next and the Finish on the Confirmation step.

In the Properties pane, set the Caption to Create Customer.

Now, you will add the fields (like first name, last name, phone, email address & date of birth) for creating a new customer record by the end-user.

In the Layout Editor, expand the Control | Container Item section.

You can find more details about available controls in Form Cell page.

Drag and drop a Simple Property onto the Page area.

Drag and drop three additional Simple Property controls onto the page so you have four total controls.

Select the first Simple Property control and provide the below information:

Select the second Simple Property control and provide the below information:

Select the third Simple Property control and provide the below information:

Select the last Simple Property control and provide the below information:

Drag and drop a Date Picker control onto the page area for date of birth parameter.

Provide the below information:

Save the changes to the CreateCustomer page.

Now, you will add a button on the Create Customer page and set it’s onPress to Close Page-Cancel action.

Drag and drop an Action Bar Item to the upper left corner of the action bar.

Action Bar Item is a button that users can use to fire actions when pressed. You can add an Action Bar Item only to the Action Bar (normally at the top of the page).

In the Properties pane, click the link icon to open the object browser for the System Item property.

Double click on the Cancel type and click OK.

System Item are predefined system-supplied icon or text. Overwrites Text and Icon if specified.

Now, you will set onPress to Close Page-Cancel action.

In Events tab, click the link icon for the OnPress property to open the object browser.

Double click on the ClosePageCancel action and click OK to set it as the OnPress Action.

Save the changes to the CreateCustomer page.

Now, create a navigation action that will open the Create Customer page when executed.

Right click on the Actions folder | New MDK Action | Navigation Action | Next.

Provide the below information:

Click Next and then Finish on the confirmation step.

You will add a button to the Customer list page called Add. You will link this button to the navigation action you just created. This event will open the Create Customer page when the Add button is pressed by the end-user.

In CustomerList page, drag and drop an Action Bar Item to the upper right of the action bar.

In the Properties pane, set Position to Right.

Click the link icon to open the object browser for the System Item property.

Double click on the Add type and click OK.

In the Properties pane, click the Events tab, click the link icon for the OnPress property to open the object browser.

Double Click on the ShowCreateCustomer action and click OK to set it as the OnPress Action.

Save the changes to the CustomerList page.

The next step is to store newly created record locally for an offline application or send the new record directly back to the backed for online applications. You will now create an action to map the changes received from the Create Customer page to the corresponding field in the OData service. You will also show a failure message if the create action fails to save the changes.

First, define a failure message.

Right click on the Actions folder | New MDK Action | Message Action | Next.

Provide the below information:

Click Next and then Finish on the Confirmation step.

Next, you will create the OData Create action to update entity action that will map the changes to the correct entities in the OData service and save the changes.

You can find more details about Create Entity Action.

Right click on the Actions folder | New MDK Action | OData Action | Next.

Provide the below information:

Click Next.

In Property and Create Links step, uncheck City.

Since in Create Customer page, we defined five properties (First Name, Last Name, Phone, Email & date of birth) to be added, now in this step, we will bind them to respective UI Controls.

Check the DateOfBirth property and click the link icon to open the object browser.

Change the drop down in the object browser to Controls & ClientData, click the Current Page radio button.

In the search box start typing the control name FCCreateDOB. The list will filter down to show the matching values. Double click on the Value (Value) entry under the FCCreateDOB field and click OK to set binding.

Repeat the above step for remaining properties: EmailAddress, FirstName, LastName and PhoneNumber.

Click Next and Finish on the confirmation screen. The action editor will open with the CreateCustomer action loaded.

Next, define Success and Failure actions for CreateCustomer action.

In the action editor for the new action, expand the Common Action Properties and select ClosePageComplete action for Success Action and CreateCustomerFailure action for Failure Action.

When CreateCustomer action gets executed successfully then ClosePageComplete action will be triggered or if CreateCustomer action fails then CreateCustomerFailure action will be triggered.

Save the changes to the CreateCustomer action.

Next, you will set the OnPress of the Save button.

Now that the Create action is created, you will need to call the Create action when the end-user presses the Save button. You will add a Save button on the CreateCustomer.page and link it to the CreateCustomer action.

In CreateCustomer.page, drag and drop an Action Bar Item to the upper right corner of the action bar.

In the Properties pane, set Position to Right.

Click the link icon to open the object browser for the System Item property.

Double click on the Save type and click OK.

In the Properties pane | Events tab, click the link icon for the OnPress property to open the object browser, bind it to CreateCustomer action.

Save the changes to the CreateCustomer page.

Deploy the updated application to your MDK client.

Right click on the MDK Application in the project explorer pane and select MDK Deploy and Activate, click Next and deploy to Mobile Services.

Make sure to select required Destination Name and Application Id as per your target environment (Neo or Cloud Foundry).

Re-launch the app on your device, you may asked to authenticate with passcode or Touch ID. You will see a Confirmation pop-up, click OK.

Click Customer List, click + icon to create a new record.

Enter the values, and click Save.

Local record gets created accordingly.

Since this is an Offline application, new entry is added to the request queue of the local store which needs to be sent or uploaded to the backend explicitly.

MDK base template has added a Sync button on main page of the app to upload local changes from device to the backend and to download the latest changes from backend to the device. Actions | Service | UploadOffline.action & DownloadOffline.action.

On Main page, click Sync, a successful message will be shown.

Re-launch the app on your device, you may asked to authenticate with passcode or Fingerprint. You will see a Confirmation pop-up, click OK.

Click Customer List, click + icon to create a new record.

Enter the values, and click save icon.

Local record gets created accordingly.

Since this is an Offline application, new entry is added to the request queue of the local store which needs to be sent or uploaded to the backend explicitly.

MDK base template has added a Sync button on main page of the app to upload local changes from device to the backend and to download the latest changes from backend to the device. Actions | Service | UploadOffline.action & DownloadOffline.action.

On Main page, click SYNC, a successful message will be shown.

You can cross verify if a record has been updated in the backend.

Backend URL can be found in Mobile Services Cockpit.

Mobile Applications | Native/Hybrid | Click on the MDK App | Sample Back End | click Root URL v2 | append /Customers

As Sync is pressed, UploadOffline.action gets trigger to upload local changes from device to the backend and on success of this call, DownloadOffline.action is being called.