This month's Tip covers the Set Property Value command. The name of this feature is something of a misnomer since AM-Meridian fields are called properties everywhere else in the program. But since most AM-Meridian users were once AM-WorkFlow customers, Cyco Software decided to keep the name for familiarity as this command performs essentially the same purpose in both programs. That is, it can be used to change the value of one property for multiple documents in a single operation.

To start the command, first select all of the documents for which you want to change one property and click Edit>Set Property Value, which displays the window below.

The command is fairly straightforward. You choose what property you want to change and specify what value you want to change it to. In the Property dropdown list, select the name of the property to change. All custom properties for the selected documents are listed. If the selected documents are of various document types, the new value will not be applied to those documents which do not have the selected property.

In the Set to group of controls are three choices of how you can specify the new property value:

• Value - Any literal value.
• Value of property - The value of another property.
• Expression - A logical expression using VB Script to calculate a new value.

If you know the exact value you wish to give the property, choose the Value option and enter the new value in the text box.

If you wish to set the selected property to the same value as another existing property, choose the Value of property option and choose the name of the property you wish this property to duplicate.

If the new value of this property depends on certain known factors, requires mathematical calculation, is a combination of the values of multiple other properties, or system information, then choose the Expression  option. If you are a VB Script expert, you can enter the expression directly into the nearby textbox. For mere mortals, click the f(x) button to display the AutoManager Script Editor window, shown below.

The script editor window allows you to enter, edit, and test script expressions before executing them with Set Field Value. The toolbar displays buttons for the clipboard commands, Cut, Copy, and Paste, Calculator, and an Object Browser. The Object Browser makes it easy to find use all of the various AM-Meridian and Visual Basic objects, methods, properties, functions, and constants. Simply navigate through the Object Browser tree to find what you need and double click it to enter it into text window. The Script Editor dyamically checks your script's syntax and displays its current status in the lower left window corner. The Help button in the Script Editor window will display documentation on VBScript from Microsoft's MSDN web site for reference. When your script is complete and valid, click OK to return to the Set Field Value dialog.

The Ignore Validation Rules checkbox is an option that allows you to set property values which do not conform to any validation rules that may be set for the property you are trying to change. For example, if the property should only contain alphabetic characters and you try to set it to a new value containing numbers, enabling this option will allow the operation to succeed. Otherwise, the operation will fail.

When all the command's options are set and you are ready to proceed with the property updates, click the OK button. A progress dialog will show you the command's progress through your document selection and the number of successful and failed updates. If any updates fail, you can reduce your selection to those documents and try again with different options.