The SalesLogix web client got a new control in 7.5.4, an in-line editable grid called the LiveGrid.  This grid is utilized in the Opportunity and Sales order areas to display the products for these entities.  While this is a nice user-interface enhancement you should be aware of a potential issue that can occur with this grid.

I recently had a client that after deploying their OOTB web site, could not see or use the product tabs.  The tabs were in fact not rendered at all.  The LiveGrid utilizes heavy use of client side script to actually construct and make the girds functional.  There system looked like this:

Looking at the browser in Firefox using Firebug we were able to see a couple of client side script errors:

Strange, since no modifications had been made to the tab.  Why would there be an error?  Well opening the Application Architect and going to the quickform for either Opportunity or Sales Order products, I examined the column properties, since that is what the first error was referencing in Firebug.

Now a close inspection of the Data Access properties of the Program Lookup column shows me tow properties, Lookup Display Property, and Resource Kind.  Yet when the quick form is deployed the resulting javascript file (QuickForms with the LiveGrid control actually render both a ascx file and a js file when the QuickForm is built a deployed) shows that the Program’s ConditionalWhere property is resulting in the error seen in Firebug:

If we look at a proper system and compare a couple of things we can see what the problem is.

First lets look at another Application Architect and the columns property of one of the LiveGrids:

Notice the Data Access properties?  There is a third property called “ConditionalWhere”.  That looks familiar.

Lets look at the deployed javascript file of this system:

Notice that there is no line “contextualCondition…” defined for the productProgram column? 

Furthermore, if we look at this product tab in the browser, everything is fine:

 What is going on here?

Well as you might have guessed, these systems are slightly different. The difference is that while both VFS have had the “Web Updates” or “Hot Fixes” or whatever Sage wants to call them now (both Web Update 1 and 2 for SalesLogix 7.5.4), only one of the systems has had the Web Update executables installed on it. 

One important file that is installed by Web Update 1 for SalesLogix 7.5.4 is the file Sage.SalesLogix.QuickForms.QFControls.dll.  This is documented in the Sage document “Applying Web Update 01 for Sage SalesLogix Version 7.5.4”.  Without this file in place any deployments made by the Application Architect for forms using the new LiveGrid control will not function.  A small detail but an important one.  This is not the only time where an executable level mismatch to the web VFS has caused problems but those issues usually resulted in errors during the build process.  This is the first case I have found where the build and deploy process seems to work OK and almost all areas of the SalesLogix web client work. 

Hopefully this post can save some of you time if you run into the same problem.