grabbing inputs that are generated from @autocomplete queries

alex_kokin

I have hit this hurdle several times now where my runbook cannot see the data from a field using the @autocomplete.

what exactly needs to be done so the runbook can see the data in the input.

in this case I created a new class to get all the Collections from SCCM. The query work perfectly providing the collections. When you select a collection and save, the runbook fails because there is no collection passed to it from the field.

Justin_Workman

@alex_kokin - You have 2 options. Either fetch the Related Item(or Affected Item depending on which relationship you configure the Query Result prompt to use), or have a step in the runbook that parses the UserInput property of the SR and pulls out the answer to the SCCM Collection prompt.

James_Johnson

Hi @alex_kokin

I just recently ran into this problem myself. I wrote this powershell to grab the data out from the user input field. In this script I have an example of the data at the top saved to a string which parses it out and puts it in variables I return from the runbook activity to use in other steps. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

ParseUserInput.txt

$UserInput = '<UserInputs><UserInput Question="Department" Answer="&lt;Values Count=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;Value DisplayName=&quot;Research Tech Support&quot; Id=&quot;97204c95-bf98-3f76-63cb-a0c0e23fb92f&quot;/&gt;&lt;/Values&gt;" Type="System.SupportingItem.PortalControl.InstancePicker" /><UserInput Question="Display Name" Answer="test 1 2 3" Type="string" /></UserInputs>'






function ParseInput($inputString){
    $UserInputs = ((($inputString | Select-String '(?<=<UserInputs>)(.*)(?=</UserInputs>)').Matches.Value).Split('<*>') | Select-String '(?<=UserInput )(.*)(?=/)').Matches.Value
    $parsedAnswers = @()
    foreach($inpt in $UserInputs){
        $question = ($inpt | Select-String -Pattern '(?<=Question=")([^"]*)(?=")').Matches.Value
        $answer = ($inpt | Select-String -Pattern '(?<=Answer=")([^"]*)(?=")').Matches.Value
        $type = ($inpt | Select-String -Pattern '(?<=Type=")([^"]*)(?=")').Matches.Value
        $tempObj = [PSCustomObject] @{
            Question = $question
            Answer = ParseAnswer $answer
            Type = $type
        }


        $parsedAnswers = $parsedAnswers + $tempObj


    }
    return $parsedAnswers
}


function ParseAnswer($inputString){
    
    $clean = $inputString.Replace('&quot;','"').replace('&gt;', '>').replace('&lt;','<')
    [System.Collections.ArrayList]$split = $clean.split('<*>', [System.StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries) 
    
    if($split.count -le 1){
        return $split
    }


    $split.Remove("/Values")
    $count = ($split[0] | Select-String -Pattern '(?<=Count=")([^"]*)(?=")').Matches.Value
    $split.RemoveAt(0)


    $vals = @()
    foreach($s in $split){
        $dict = @{}
        $props = ($s | Select-String -pattern '(?<=\s)([\w\d]*)(?==")' -AllMatches).Matches.Value
        foreach($p in $props){
            $pattern = '(?<=' + $p + '=")([^"]*)(?=")'
            $val = ($s | Select-String -Pattern $pattern).Matches.Value
            $dict.Add($p, $val)


        }
        $vals = $vals + $dict
    }
    return $vals
}




$parsedData = ParseInput $UserInput


$DisplayName = $parsedData[1].Answer
$Department = $parsedData[0].Answer["DisplayName"]
$UserName = ($parsedData[1].Answer).Replace(" ","_")

Brian_Wiest

I also have a similar PS script.

This script will take the user input and break it down by types to return a question and answer array.

but when needed to pull specifics out I create the variable in the specific section. The script pulls out the CI user GUID that you can then pass to the next step of the runbook to Get-Object AD user to pull all their CI data. Also have the User input in @" "@ to account for users typing weird stuff into the free form txt boxes.

HTH

[xml]$UserInput = @"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"@

## Create empty Question and Answer Array
$QAArray = @()

## Define variables for each of the Node Types
$StringNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "string"}
$IntNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "int"}
$EnumNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "enum"}
$DateNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "datetime"}
$QueryNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "System.SupportingItem.PortalControl.InstancePicker"}
$BoolNodes = $UserInput.Userinputs.Userinput | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq "bool"}

## Process String-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($StringNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($strnode in $StringNodes) {
        [string]$StringQuestion = $strnode.Question
        [string]$StringAnswer = $strnode.Answer
        $QAArray += ("$StringQuestion = $StringAnswer")
    }
}

## Process String-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($IntNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($IntNode in $IntNodes) {
        [string]$IntQuestion = $IntNode.Question
        [string]$IntAnswer = $IntNode.Answer
        $QAArray += ("$IntQuestion = $IntAnswer")
    }
}

## Process Bool-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($BoolNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($boolnode in $BoolNodes) {
        [string]$BoolQuestion = $boolnode.Question
        [string]$BoolAnswer = $boolnode.Answer
        $QAArray += ("$BoolQuestion = $BoolAnswer")
    }
}

## Process Date-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($DateNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($datenode in $DateNodes) {
        [string]$DateQuestion = $datenode.Question
        $RawDateAnswer = [datetime]$datenode.Answer
        [string]$DateAnswer = $RawDateAnswer.ToString("d")
        $QAArray += ("$DateQuestion = $DateAnswer")
    }
}

## Process Enum-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($EnumNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($enumnode in $EnumNodes) {
            [string]$EnumQuestion = $enumnode.Question
            $EnumAnswer = $enumnode.Answer
            $EnumAnswerDetails = Get-SCSMEnumeration -Id $EnumAnswer
            [string]$AnswerDisplayName = $EnumAnswerDetails.displayname
            $QAArray += ("$EnumQuestion = $AnswerDisplayName")
        }
}

## Process Query-type Questions and Answers, then add to the Array
if (($QueryNodes | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
    foreach ($querynode in $QueryNodes) {
        [string]$QueryQuestion = $querynode.question
        [xml]$QueryAnswerXML = $querynode.answer
        if ($QueryAnswerXML.Values.Count -gt 1) {
            [string]$QueryAnswerDS = ($QueryAnswerXML.Values.Value.DisplayName) -join "; "
        }
        else {
            [string]$QueryAnswerDS = $QueryAnswerXML.Values.Value.DisplayName
        }
        $QAArray += ("$QueryQuestion = $QueryAnswerDS")
    }
}

## Format the Array into a Multi-Line String
$QAString = ""
foreach ($ArrayEntry in $QAArray) {
    $QAString += "$ArrayEntry`n"
}
$QAString = $QAString.Substring(0,$QAString.Length-1)

## Output the Result
$QAString