Overview

In Composer, Dynamic Data has two meanings:

 

•Dynamically changing the information displayed on a form without reloading the page

•Accessing a third party web service for data for this dynamic display

 

What is Dynamic Data?

Dynamic Data is an Avoka Transact capability that allows a form to communicate back to the Transaction Manager Server while the form is still being filled in and even display new data on the fly, without the page being reloaded or the form being submitted. This allows an additional level of functionality to be built into forms.

 

Dynamic Data is a general purpose communication mechanism and can be used for many reasons. Common use cases are:

 

•Sending some data from the form to the server (such as a user id) and retrieving some information to populate fields in the form (such as their address).

•Sending some data from the form to the server (such as a user id) and retrieving some information to populate a pick-list in the form (such as a list of the subjects that the user is enrolled in). The pick-list can be in the form of a drop-down list, table, or other visual element.

•Sending some data from the form to the server to perform a server-side calculation.

•Sending some data from the form to the server to perform a server-side validation.

 

Dynamic Data requires collaboration between the form developer, and a server-side developer who defines a Dynamic Data service in Transaction Manager. Please refer to the Transaction Manager document for more information on this.

 

Composer provides a number of different facilities for using Dynamic Data:

 

•Widgets that have pre-built Dynamic Data support, such as the "Lookup" Button.

•An assistant that builds lookup-style Dynamic Data capabilities.

 

Dynamic Data in Action

We recommended you initiate Dynamic Data invocations by a direct user actions, like a button click, not from implicit actions, such as exiting a field. Direct actions set user expectations that "something time-consuming should now happen, and may even fail." Internet performance and reliability is beyond our control, so using a button sets end user expectations that some action is about to occur.

 

However, it is also possible to use Dynamic Data to perform "predictive" lookups, such as the list of completion hints seen while typing in a Google search . The AutoSuggest example below shows these predictive lookups using the Veda Geolocation service.

Help URL: https://composer.business.gov.au/composer/doc/index.html?dynamic_data.htm