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What is a Smart Action?

Sooner or later, you will need to perform actions on your data that are specific to your business. Moderating comments, generating an invoice, logging into a customer’s account or banning a user are exactly the kind of important tasks to unlock in order to manage your day-to-day operations. On our Live Demo example, our companies collection has many examples of Smart Action. The simplest one is Mark as live.
If you’re looking for information on native actions (CRUD), check out this page.

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Creating a Smart action

In order to create a Smart action, you will first need to declare it in your code for a specific collection. Here we declare a Mark as Live Smart action for the companies collection. 
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('companies', {
  actions: [
    {
      name: 'Mark as Live',
    },
  ],
});

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req.user

req.user content example

{
  "id": "172",
  "email": "angelicabengtsson@doha2019.com",
  "firstName": "Angelica",
  "lastName": "Bengtsson",
  "team": "Pole Vault",
  "role": "Manager",
  "tags": [{ key: "country", value: "Canada" }],
  "renderingId": "4998",
  "iat": 1569913709,
  "exp": 1571123309
}

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req.body

You can find important information in the body of the request.
This is particularly useful to find the context in which an action was performed via a relationship.
{
  data: {
    attributes: {
      collection_name: 'users', //collection on which the action has been triggered
      values: {},
      ids: [Array], //IDs of selected records
      parent_collection_name: 'companies', //Parent collection name
      parent_collection_id: '1', //Parent collection id
      parent_association_name: 'users', //Name of the association
      all_records: false,
      all_records_subset_query: {},
      all_records_ids_excluded: [],
      smart_action_id: 'users-reset-password'
    },
    type: 'custom-action-requests'
  }
}

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Customizing response

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Default success notification

Returning a 204 status code to the HTTP request of the Smart Action shows the default notification message in the browser. On our Live Demo example, if our Smart Action Mark as Live route is implemented like this: 
...

router.post('/actions/mark-as-live', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(), (req, res) => {
  // ...
  res.status(204).send();
});

...
We will see a success message in the browser:

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Custom success notification

If we return a 200 status code with an object { success: '...' } as the payload like this… 
...

router.post('/actions/mark-as-live', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(), (req, res) => {
  // ...
  res.send({ success: 'Company is now live!' });
});

...
… the success notification will look like this:

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Custom error notification

Finally, returning a 400 status code allows you to return errors properly. 
...

router.post('/actions/mark-as-live', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(), (req, res) => {
  // ...
  res.status(400).send({ error: 'The company was already live!' });
});

...

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Custom HTML response

You can also return a HTML page as a response to give more feedback to the admin user who has triggered your Smart Action. To do this, you just need to return a 200 status code with an object { html: '...' }. On our Live Demo example, we’ve created a Charge credit card Smart Action on the Collection customersthat returns a custom HTML response. 
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('customers', {
  actions: [
    {
      name: 'Charge credit card',
      type: 'single',
      fields: [
        {
          field: 'amount',
          isRequired: true,
          description:
            'The amount (USD) to charge the credit card. Example: 42.50',
          type: 'Number',
        },
        {
          field: 'description',
          isRequired: true,
          description:
            'Explain the reason why you want to charge manually the customer here',
          type: 'String',
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
});

...
const stripe = require('stripe')(process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY);

router.post('/actions/charge-credit-card', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(), (req, res) => {
  let customerId = req.body.data.attributes.ids[0];
  let amount = req.body.data.attributes.values.amount * 100;
  let description = req.body.data.attributes.values.description;

  return customers
    .findByPk(customerId)
    .then((customer) => {
      return stripe.charges.create({
        amount: amount,
        currency: 'usd',
        customer: customer.stripe_id,
        description: description
      });
    })
    .then((response) => {
      res.send({
        html: `
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mt l-mb">\$${response.amount / 100} USD has been successfully charged.</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Credit card</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">**** **** **** ${response.source.last4}</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Expire</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${response.source.exp_month}/${response.source.exp_year}</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Card type</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${response.source.brand}</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Country</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${response.source.country}</p>
        `
      });
    });
});

...

module.exports = router;
You can either respond with an HTML page in case of error. The user will be able to go back to his smart action’s form by using the cross icon at the top right of the panel. 
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('customers', {
  actions: [
    {
      name: 'Charge credit card',
      type: 'single',
      fields: [
        {
          field: 'amount',
          isRequired: true,
          description:
            'The amount (USD) to charge the credit card. Example: 42.50',
          type: 'Number',
        },
        {
          field: 'description',
          isRequired: true,
          description:
            'Explain the reason why you want to charge manually the customer here',
          type: 'String',
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
});

...
const stripe = require('stripe')(process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY);

router.post('/actions/charge-credit-card', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(), (req, res) => {
  let customerId = req.body.data.attributes.ids[0];
  let amount = req.body.data.attributes.values.amount * 100;
  let description = req.body.data.attributes.values.description;

  return customers
    .findByPk(customerId)
    .then((customer) => {
      return stripe.charges.create({
        amount: amount,
        currency: 'usd',
        customer: customer.stripe_id,
        description: description
      });
    })
    .then((response) => {
      res.status(400).send({
        html: `
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mt l-mb">$${response.amount / 100} USD has not been charged.</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Credit card</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">**** **** **** ${response.source.last4}</p>
        <strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Reason</strong>
        <p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">You can not charge this credit card. The card is marked as blocked</p>
        `
      });
    });
});

...

module.exports = router;

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Setting up a webhook

After a smart action you can set up a HTTP (or HTTPS) callback - a webhook - to forward information to other applications.

To set up a webhook all you have to do is to add a webhookobject in the response of your action. 
response.send({
  webhook: {
    // This is the object that will be used to fire http calls.
    url: 'http://my-company-name', // The url of the company providing the service.
    method: 'POST', // The method you would like to use (typically a POST).
    headers: {}, // You can add some headers if needed (you can remove it).
    body: {
      // A body to send to the url (only JSON supported).
      adminToken: 'your-admin-token',
    },
  },
});
If you want to create an action accessible from the details or the summary view of a record involving related data, this section may interest you. In the example below, the “Add new transaction” action is accessible from the summary view. This action creates a new transaction and automatically refreshes the “Emitted transactions” related data section to see the new transaction.
Below is the sample code. We use faker to generate random data in our example. Remember to install it if you wish to use it (npm install faker).
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('companies', {
  actions: [
    {
      name: 'Add new transaction',
      description: 'Name of the company who will receive the transaction.',
      fields: [
        {
          field: 'Beneficiary company',
          description: 'Name of the company who will receive the transaction.',
          reference: 'companies.id',
        },
        {
          field: 'Amount',
          type: 'Number',
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
});

...
const faker = require('faker');

router.post('/actions/add-new-transaction', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(),
  (req, res) => {
    let emitterCompanyId = req.body.data.attributes.ids[0]
    let beneficiaryCompanyId = req.body.data.attributes.values['Beneficiary company']
    let amount = req.body.data.attributes.values['Amount']

    return transactions
      .create({
        emitter_company_id: emitterCompanyId,
        beneficiary_company_id: beneficiaryCompanyId,
        beneficiary_iban: faker.finance.iban(),
        emitter_iban: faker.finance.iban(),
        vat_amount: faker.finance.amount(500, 10000, 0),
        fee_amount: faker.finance.amount(500, 10000, 0),
        status: ['to_validate', 'validated', 'rejected'].sample,
        note: faker.lorem.sentences(),
        amount: amount,
        emitter_bic: faker.finance.bic(),
        beneficiary_bic: faker.finance.bic()
      })
      .then(() => {
	    // the code below automatically refresh the related data
    	// 'emitted_transactions' on the Companies' Summary View
    	// after submitting the Smart action form.
        res.send({
          success: 'New transaction emitted',
          refresh: { relationships: ['emitted_transactions'] },
        });
      });
});

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Redirecting to a different page on success

To streamline your operation workflow, it could make sense to redirect to another page after a Smart action was successfully executed.

It is possible using the redirectTo property.

The redirection works both for internal (*.forestadmin.com pages) and external links.
External links will open in a new tab.
Here’s a working example for both cases: 
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('models', {
  actions: [
    {
      name: 'Return and track',
    },
    {
      name: 'Show some activity',
    },
  ],
});

...

// External redirection
router.post('/actions/return-and-track', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(),
  (req, res) => {
    res.send({
      success: 'Return initiated successfully.',
      redirectTo: 'https://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/track?trackNumber=ZW924750388GB',
    });
  }
);

// Internal redirection
router.post('/actions/show-some-activity', permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(),
  (req, res) => {
    res.send({
      success: 'Navigated to the activity view.',
      redirectTo: '/MyProject/MyEnvironment/MyTeam/data/20/index/record/20/108/activity',
    });
  }
);

...

module.exports = router;
Your external links must use the http or https protocol.

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Enable/Disable a Smart Action according to the state of a record

Sometimes, your Smart Action only makes sense depending on the state of your records. On our Live Demo, it does not make any sense to enable the Mark as Live Smart Action on the companies collection if the company is already live, right? This is configured from the collection’s Smart Action settings.

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Restrict a smart action to specific roles

When using Forest collaboratively with clear roles defined it becomes relevant to restrict a smart action only to a select few. This functionality is accessible through Smart Actions Permissions in the Role section of your Project Settings.

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Require approval for a Smart action

Critical actions for your business may need approval before being processed. You can require approval per role from the Roles tab of your Project Settings; approval requests are then reviewed from the Collaboration menu.
Want to go further with Smart Actions? Read the next page to discover how to make your Smart Actions even more powerful with Forms!