Project goal
Simple tool to quickly create picklist projects in Saleslogix. The picklists in Saleslogix are a very nice tool, easy to use and convenient for users to manage. However, I don't know about you but I simply dread the task of creating the picklist bundles. Each picklist has to be selected individually from a tiny selection box, which resets every time you open it. This tool helped me resolve the problem today as I was facing the task of creating 15 picklist bundles (for ease of customization they are placed in individual bundles which makes the task even harder). Here you indicate to the program which bundle will serve as the "template" (one that has the correct address, description and copyright notice), paste in a list of the picklists which need to be saved, and it will create either one project containing all the picklists or one project per picklist. It is also able to generate the bundle (.sxb) files necessary to deploy the picklist.
How to use it
You may download either the executable version, or the source code. If you download the source code, be sure to compile it before opening the form, in order for the custom control to be included correctly. This is what the main (and only!) screen looks like:  Note that the app has to be run from a computer with a local installation of Saleslogix. Pretty simple:
- Select the database to play with (all the connections defined in the local client will be shown)
- Enter the Admin password, if not blank
- Select (or type the name of) the "template" project - a project that is already set up with the appropriate description, name, address etc. The items that are in the project won't be copied, so it does not have to be an existing picklist project
- Enter or paste the picklists to be added to the projects
- Enter the project name. If creating a single project, then check the appropriate button from the bottom, and type in your project name. If creating one project per picklist, then the name is a format string for the project and the "{0}" string will be substituted with the picklist name. For example in the screenshot above 2 projects will be created named: "SSS Picklist [Contact Type]", and "SSS Picklist [Account Type]".
- If you want to also generate the .sxb files, check that box and pick the folder to store them in
- Click Create! There is not much error handling so if you messed up you will probably get a nasty exception box.
Release History
- 1.0 (12/26/2008): initial release
- 1.1 (12/28/2008): add option to save bundle files
- 1.2 (12/30/2008): fix problem when saving picklist containing / character
Future improvements
- Interface for entering the picklist values (this would create the picklists in Saleslogix AND the projects)
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