Intro to scripting
... in MCe

All of these have extensive documentation, training courses and so on on the internet, so we aren't going to try to teach you any of these. Our documentation more focuses on the specifics of how to use within our system.

This document is expected to be enhanced. Check back in a month or so.

Different scripting languages:

JavaScript

Inside our Advanced reports you can type JavaScript for all sorts of purposes, getting data from an API, formatting, sending special codes to enhance the report.

liquid templates

Used in places like the preferences for ID and Name, that let you create one or both from a 'template'. So you can create the ID from the name instead of having to type it in all the time. (If you do this, remove ID from the New UI once you have it working)

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SQL

Inside our Standard and Advanced reports you can type SQL to get data from the CMMS data.

We have a SQL tool for advanced users to access and even change the data. Unlike a tool like SSMS (that your IT staff may know) we track EVERY command so there is audit history of changes made through the SQL tool.

JSON

This is what is known as a 'key/value' storage system. It has {} around the whole thing, then inside it has keys in double quotes ""s and then a colon : then a value.

  • When we export data it is often exported when possible into JSON data. This means it can be edited and often imported back in.
    • So for example, if you are creating preferences for 16 access groups. It may be easier to create it for one, then export the preferences, tweak the access group in a tool like VSC or Notepad++ or even the venerable Notepad app, then import them.
  • In our SQL tool you may run into data (such as the new and old data in our audit table) that is provided in JSON format, all on one line in the cell.
  • In our Query defining tool, the query is stored in JSON format, all on one line

Handy tools:

A handy tool to have is a JSON pretty printer. If you don't have one you like, we usually use https://jsonformatter.org/json-pretty-print you can edit there, then at the top of each window there is a 'remove whitespace' which lets you bring it back to the 1 line format if you want or need.

If there is a lot that you want to read, but not edit, you might prefer their JSON beautifier https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer which gives you a tree that lets you 'drill down' and 'collapse' to make the data easier to understand.

There are many other tools, both free and paid, that give different features for viewing and editing JSON.

Where to next:

From here you can explore the internet on all the above. You can look at our docs for making specific changes that you might want to make, or you can more generally explore any of the locations we have script as discussed above.