Parent Base Id inside nested Activities

Simon_Zeinhofer

When I want to get the Parent Work Item from a Runbook Automation Activity with the "System.WorkItemContainsActivity" Relationship, and that runbook is inside an SA or PA, I have use it that way, in order to receive the Service Request:

$ContainsActivity = Get-SCSMRelationshipClass -Id '2da498be-0485-b2b2-d520-6ebd1698e61b'
$relatedSR = (Get-SCSMRelationshipObject -ByTarget $activity -Relationship $ContainsActivity | ? {$_.SourceObject.ClassName -eq 'System.WorkItem.ServiceRequest'}).SourceObject

As I want to exchange more and more Orchestrator Runbooks with PS Activities, I wanted to ask, what happens, when I use the Parant Base Id like this and the PS Activitiy is inside an SA or PA:

Is the property "Parent Base Id" ALWAYS the Guid of the Work Item containing the Activities, or will it return the "real" parent object, in that case the SA or PA, a bit like in the RB Activity.

Simon_Zeinhofer

Tested it and it always takes the SR, even if the PSA itself is inside a nested activity

Geoff_Ross

Hi Simon,

Yup, you are right, we got you covered here.

However, if you ever need to deal with nested Activities, here's a self calling recursive function to get the top level parent.

#Function to get the top Parent WI of an activity
Function Get-ParentWI {
    Param (
        $Activity,
        [string]$ComputerName
    )
    
    $SCSM = @{
        ComputerName = $ComputerName
    }
    
    #Get Parent of this Activity
    $WIContainsActivityRel = Get-SCSMRelationshipClass "System.WorkItemContainsActivity" @SCSM
    $ParentWI = (Get-SCSMRelationshipObject -TargetObject $Activity -TargetRelationship $WIContainsActivityRel @SCSM).SourceObject
    
    If ($ParentWI -eq $null) {
        # We've reached the top - Return Original Actvity
        Return $Activity
    }
    Else {
        # Parent is not confrmed as the root, and thus, we will loop into another "Get-ParentWI" function.
        Get-ParentWI -Activity $ParentWI @SCSM
    }
}

Simon_Zeinhofer

Tested it and it always takes the SR, even if the PSA itself is inside a nested activity

Geoff_Ross

Hi Simon,

Yup, you are right, we got you covered here.

However, if you ever need to deal with nested Activities, here's a self calling recursive function to get the top level parent.

#Function to get the top Parent WI of an activity
Function Get-ParentWI {
    Param (
        $Activity,
        [string]$ComputerName
    )
    
    $SCSM = @{
        ComputerName = $ComputerName
    }
    
    #Get Parent of this Activity
    $WIContainsActivityRel = Get-SCSMRelationshipClass "System.WorkItemContainsActivity" @SCSM
    $ParentWI = (Get-SCSMRelationshipObject -TargetObject $Activity -TargetRelationship $WIContainsActivityRel @SCSM).SourceObject
    
    If ($ParentWI -eq $null) {
        # We've reached the top - Return Original Actvity
        Return $Activity
    }
    Else {
        # Parent is not confrmed as the root, and thus, we will loop into another "Get-ParentWI" function.
        Get-ParentWI -Activity $ParentWI @SCSM
    }
}

Simon_Zeinhofer

@Geoff_Ross Thanks for the explanation :)

I wrote something similar for a script where I want to receive the Activities and Child IDs from a certain Template ;-)

Short question: you wrote that you will release a new add in for handling e.g. template permissions at the end of june ;-) will it be released soon? :)

Simon_Zeinhofer

@Geoff_Ross There might be some problems with that though:

Today I moved 2 existing PSAs inside a template into a PA and now the Parent Base ID gives back the Guid of the PA. even removing the 2 activities completely and readding them did not solve the issue. Did I do something wrong here?