CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

At PTP we're evaluating the use of CiviCRM's search builder vs. Drupal views. It seems like a lot of energy is being put into Views integration and there is a lot more flexibility in views for building complex searches.

However, I don't think we can't apply CiviCRM Actions to the results of views like we can to the results of any CiviCRM search.

Has anyone explored adding this feature? Or are there any other known work-arounds?

I have some experience with Views Bulk Operations, which might provide a helpful framework for combinng the results of a Drupal views query with CiviCRM actions.

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks!

jamie

It would be absolutely magic if we could get the mass action generic enough so it can be called from anywhere, not only from a search result.

I did try re-using the existing form, but qF and the magic hidden params stopped me. It would be great if there is a new menu civicrm/contact/actions that can take an action ("mail","pdf","add_group"...) and either a group id or an array of ids

X+

I am looking into Views and VBO as well for Civicrm contacts - I think it is a very intesting combo.

dharmatech.org is not online anymore, but I found a cached version of the link here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120823132651/http://dharmatech.org/ideas/2012/vbo-actions-civicrm-custom-fields

Definately interesting. However hook_node_operations() is not supported by VBO for D7 as far as I understood - but I may have misunderstood something. So for Drupal 7 you should only use hook_action_info(). I have tried with the following code in a custom module. The action is listed in the action list (/admin/config/system/actions) but no vbo field is available in my civicrm contact view. Has anyone succeeded with the vbo integration for Civicrm contacts in Drupal 7?

function civicrm_vbo_action_info() {
return array(
'civicrm_vbo_action' => array(
'label' => t('civicrm custom api action'),
'type' => 'civicrm_contact',
'configurable' => FALSE,
'triggers' => array('any'),
),
);
}

function civicrm_vbo_action($object, $context = array()) {
dpm($object);
dpm($context);
return 'test';
}


I have now asked in the vbo issue queue to be sure (http://drupal.org/node/2001364). hook_views_bulk_operations_object_info is no longer supported by VBO since VBO is now completely based on Drupal entities - hook_action_info or a Rules component should do the trick. But since CiviCRM contacts are non-drupal-entities my sample code will not work. And because vbo is completely based on Drupal entities in D7, the example from Dharmatech will not work either.

A previous feature request for handling non-drupal-entities in vbo was raised in this issue http://drupal.org/node/1985622. But Bojanz rejects the feature request - it actually makes good sense. He mentions that it is possible to implement hook_entity_info() for a datastructure - this will give alot of other benefits in terms of other Drupal modules based on Drupal entities. http://drupal.org/node/1985622#comment-7372052

I am not yet familar with editablefields in Drupal, but it seems interesting. I have also found the Spark project that will be included in Drupal 8 core. In this Spark issue (http://drupal.org/node/1865600) inplace editing of views is mentioned - it is supported via the Edit module - the Edit module is based on Drupal entities as well and will be included in Drupal 8 core as a part of Spark. It seems there is still work to be done for the Spark project and Edit module. But if it is possible to implement entity_info for CiviCRM contact datastructure it may open up alot of other interesting possibilities in the future for using other Drupal modules together with CiviCRM.

Will it be possible to implement hook_entity_info for CiviCRM contacts? Does it make any sense? Has there been any talk about this?

Thanks alot for the info Lobo. I have done some more reading via your link.

And a quick test of the civicrm_entity module by Eileen was actually quite promising. I succeeded in creating a vbo-field in my CiviCRM view with actions either from a custom module (hook_actions_info) or via a rules component. As long as the contact_id is passed to the action it will be possible via the API to create lots of custom actions.

Definately the way to go for future Drupal integration projects since it will open up alot of possibilities of using other Drupal modules in connection with CiviCRM.

Basically I used Eileens github module (it seems it is the same as in her Drupal sandbox - the recent commit in github is however not transferred yet to the Drupal sandbox).

It worked straight out of the box. I am using vbo together with Rules Components PHP actions - then I can create various custom Civi actions via the api. For instance update of existing membership:
civicrm_initialize();

$params = array(
  'version' => 3,
  'id' => [civi-contact:id],
  'membership_end_date' => '2013-12-31',
);

$result = civicrm_api('Membership', 'update', $params);

I have also made a post in this thread Lobo is referring to:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=27871.msg123786#msg123786

I am a bit unsure in which thread to continue the discussion about this. Sonicthoughts has made a great overview here:
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=27871.msg121412#msg121412

And here:
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Make+it+happen+candidates

I am not a developer myself, more a web project manager and system manager. I know how to edit basic php and write some basic Civi API functions, but I am definately not a hardcore developer. It's not my professional job either - just volunteering in some non-profit organizations so funding from my site will unfortunately also be very limited. But I am willing to help in testing the module for different use-case scenarios and report back the errors.