Encounter Medium "Weirdness"

[PrincessAng417]

Using Civi 4.5.4:

I'm not sure if I should post this under Using Core CiviCRM Functions, or Using CiviCase... the issue is that an Activity is not the same under each section.

If I enter an Activity, say a Meeting, as an Activity that is *not* on a Case, I am not given the opportunity to enter an Encounter Medium.

Conversely, if I enter the same Activity (Meeting) under a Case, I am *required* to enter an Encounter Medium.

The choices for Encounter Medium are set under the "Manage CiviCase" Admin screen, but the Activities all appear to be stored in the same DB table.  So shouldn't these things be consistent?  It's proving difficult to train users when the data entry screens are not the same, depending on where they click from.

The follow-up issues are that (1) the Encounter Medium is not searchable in the Advanced Search, and (2) it is only exportable when viewing as Cases, not as Activities.

[Dave Greenberg]

Not sure how to resolve this until we've implemented our new form-builder mechanism slated for 5.0. At that point, the goal is that it's easy for each site to customized built-in forms (layout and form elements). I'm not aware of any other requests to expose encounter medium to non-case activities - so I'm not inclined to add another element to that form unless there was an easy way to choose whether it is included.

I don't think it would be too difficult to add it for your install with a simple extension - which I think is your best bet for now.

[PrincessAng417]

The other approach would be to make it not required (or even make the field go away altogether) for the Case-related Activities.  In many use cases, we would prefer not to use it at all, but the field is *required*.

[Dave Greenberg]

Changing this line (around 186) in CRM/Case/Form/Activity/OpenCase.php

From:
    $form->addSelect('medium_id', array('entity' => 'activity'), TRUE);

To:
    $form->addSelect('medium_id', array('entity' => 'activity'), FALSE);

... will make the field NOT required. You can also change the default 'medium' to something like '(not applicable)' from Administer > CiviCase > Encounter Medium.

[PrincessAng417]

Thanks-- I'm going to give this a go.