Instructions

Loading and managing 1E Instruction sets.

You can access this menu by clicking your avatar and selecting Settings. This is only visible, and restricted to the Full Administrator role by default or a configured role with the Security permission. Refer to Roles and Securables.

Instruction sets

The Instruction sets page enables users with the Full Administrator role, to add, remove and modify the product packs used by 1E. This page can be viewed by users with the All instructions actioner role.

You can perform these tasks:

  • Adding Instruction Definitions into 1E.

  • Creating Instruction sets.

  • Moving Instructions to Instruction sets.

  • Deleting Instructions sets and Instructions.

  • Updating Instructions.

You can create your own platform instructions using SCALE.

SCALE is a powerful, lightweight, cross-platform programming language which combines 1E Client Methods and Modules with SQL commands to enable you to create questions, actions, preconditions, checks, and fixes that can automate almost anything on a Windows, Linux or macOS device.

Refer to https://help.1e.com/SDK/index.html

Instruction sets overview

1E functionality is based around instructions. Refer to Instruction, until these are added to the system you will not be able to ask questions or perform actions.

1E provides instructions in zip files called DEX Packs. A collection of DEX Packs are available in the 1E Platform zip. The 1E Platform zip can be downloaded from the 1E Support Portal. Additional DEX Packs are available from 1E Exchange. Each DEX Pack contains a related collection of Instruction Definitions. DEX Packs and Instruction Definitions can be added by a Full Administrator.

There are also server instructions which are special type of instruction. They are for internal use only, run on the platform, and used to carry out on-demand or scheduled processing of data across various datasources, such as SQL databases. For example, the Dashboards app uses them to populate tiles and charts with data from 1E Master and Experience databases.

When added into 1E, Instructions are immediately allocated to the built-in Unassigned Instruction set. Instruction sets provide a way of determining the permissions for the Instructions they contain, but the Unsassigned Instruction set is only intended as a staging area for newly loaded Instructions - and Instructions in this set cannot be used directly. An Instruction can only belong to a single Instruction set, so after loading it into 1E, and before it can be used, it must be moved to another Instruction set - one created by a Full Administrator.

Instruction sets created by a Full Administrator can be used as the basis for custom roles created by a Full Administrator or Group Administrator. These custom roles determine the permissions for the Instruction sets and all the Instructions they contain. This enables the administrator to complete the assignment of specific Instruction set roles to users and determine which Instructions they can action, approve, question or view.

Custom roles cannot be defined for the Unassigned set and none of the global roles in the platform have permissions on the Unassigned set. So at least one Instruction set must be added and populated before you can begin to use Instructions.

Adding Instruction Definitions into 1E

  1. Click the Upload button on the header for the page.

  2. In the Open dialog, locate and select the file(s) you want.

  3. Click the Open button.

  4. At this point all the Instructions from the selected DEX Packs or Instruction Definition files will be uploaded into 1E and added to the default Unassigned Instruction set.

Creating Instruction sets

Instruction sets can be created in the following way.

  1. Select the Instructions you want to move to the new set by checking the checkbox at the left-hand end of the instruction's row.

  2. Click the Add New set button.

  3. In the Add new instruction set popup, enter a suitable name for the Instruction set.

  4. You can optionally add a custom icon, in JPG or PNG format, that will be used when displaying the instruction:

    1. Click the Choose File button.

    2. In the Open dialog, locate and select the JPG or PNG file you want to use.

    3. Click Open to load the file into 1E.

    4. The file location and a preview of the file will be displayed in the popup.

  5. Ensure that the Include n selected instructions checkbox is checked

  6. Click the Add button

When familiarizing yourself with the new instructions contained in a DEX Pack it can be convenient to create a matching Instruction set to hold all its instructions. You can then set permissions for all the instructions contained in the DEX Pack in one go. Later on you can then add other Instruction sets and move the Instructions in order to refine the permissions for each instruction.

Creating an empty Instruction set

To add an empty Instruction set where you can subsequently move Instructions.

  1. Click the Add new set button.

  2. In the Add new instruction set popup, enter a suitable name for the Instruction set.

  3. You can optionally add a custom icon, in JPG or PNG format, that will be used when displaying the instruction:

    1. Click the Choose File button.

    2. In the Open dialog, locate and select the JPG or PNG file you want to use.

    3. Click Open to load the file into 1E.

    4. The file location and a preview of the file will be displayed in the popup.

  4. Click the Add button.

Moving Instructions to Instruction sets

The following steps are used to move instructions between Instruction sets:

Move one or more selected Instructions:

  1. Select the source Instruction set you want to move the Instruction(s) from, or select All, from the list of Instruction sets, and locate the Instruction(s) you want to move.

  2. Check the checkbox at the start of each Instruction item in the Instructions table for each Instruction you want to move.

  3. When the selection has been made click the Move button.

  4. In the Move instructions popup subsequently displayed:

    1. Select the desired destination Instruction set from the Destination instruction set dropdown list.

    2. Click Move when the set has been selected.

Deleting Instructions sets and Instructions

Instruction sets are relatively simple to add, populate and delete, making the re-organization of Instruction permissions easy to do.

When deleting you get to choose whether you just want to delete the Instruction set or to also remove the Instructions in the Set from 1E, if you choose to delete:

  • Just the Instruction set, any Instructions it contained will be returned to the Unassigned Set, effectively making them unavailable until they are assigned to another Instruction set.

  • Both the Instruction set and all the Instructions it contains, those Instructions will be unavailable to 1E until they are loaded back into the system and assigned to another Instruction set.

Before deleting you need to be aware:

  • Instructions in the Instruction set you want to delete may currently be running. Deleting an Instruction set will invalidate any role-based permissions from that point onwards, though any instructions that are in flight will not change.

  • Any Custom Roles that were previously configured for the deleted Instruction set will still remain but will be disconnected from the deleted Instruction set.

Deleting an Instruction set

The following steps can be used to delete an Instruction set.

  1. Locate the Instruction set you want to delete in the Instruction sets list.

  2. Hover the mouse over the Instruction set name, a tooltip with three vertical dots will appear. Click on this to display a menu.

  3. Select Delete.

  4. In the Delete instruction set popup subsequently displayed you have the choice as to whether you want to just delete the Instruction set or delete the Instruction definitions it contains too. To delete both you check the Delete both instruction set and instructions inside set checkbox.

  5. Once you've made your choice click the Yes, delete instruction set button to proceed with the deletion.

  6. If you chose to just delete the Instruction set, as shown in our example, the Instructions previously held in the Instruction set go back to the Unassigned Instruction set.

  7. If you chose to delete the Instruction set and instructions all the instructions contained in the set are removed from 1E.

Deleting one or more selected Instructions from 1E

The following steps can be used to delete one or more selected Instructions.

  1. In the Instructions table, select the Instruction set containing the Instruction(s) you want to delete, or select All.

  2. Select the checkbox at the left-hand end of the Instruction's row in the Instructions table for each one you want to delete.

  3. Click on Delete button in the button panel on the right.

  4. In the Confirm delete dialog subsequently displayed click Delete to continue and remove the selected Instruction(s) from 1E or Cancel to cancel the operation.

Updating Instructions

To update an Instruction, load the newer version into 1E, and it will be updated in place, keeping any currently set Instruction set intact.

Statistics for the upload operation can be viewed by clicking on the drop zone.

Upgrading and updating Instructions

1E Instructions are designed as far as possible to be backwards compatible, but as a general rule we recommend that you update your 1E DEX Packs to the latest version so that you can gain the benefit of newer features.

When upgrading you should be able to safely keep your existing Instructions. We recommend that newer versions of Instructions are verified in a test environment to ensure that they still behave as expected before updating in your production environment.

An instruction is not upgraded if it is the same version, or is currently in use. You will be notified if any instructions are not upgraded because they are in use. You can upload the product pack again later, after the instruction has completed, or canceled.

Your license should retain any code signing certificates you may have registered. This means your custom instructions should continue to be licensed as normal following an upgrade of 1E. You may want to check the Writing instructions in the 1E SDK pages to check for any changes to the SCALE language, sometimes referred to as DEX Code.