Customizing Event Descriptions

You can customize the descriptions of events that are displayed in the description column of event lists.

Note that the user can choose to display either detailed or summarized descriptions—both of these descriptions are customizable.

Event descriptions are specified in the eventDescriptions.xml file. For information about the location of this file, see Location of the Event Configuration Files to Configure.

The eventDescriptions.xml file contains event elements, one for each possible event. For example, the following is for the “close work item” event:

<event messageId="BRM_WORKITEM_CLOSE"
       summary="eventDescriptions.summary.closed"
       detail="eventDescriptions.detail.closed"/>

The Event element has the following attributes:

  • messageId - Identifies the event. Note that the messageId is prefixed with an acronym for the component that generates the event, as follows:
    • BRM - Business Resource Management
    • DE - Directory Engine
    • WPCORE - Work Presentation
    • BX - Process Engine
    • WS - Workspace
  • summary - The string in this attribute is a key that points to the description that is displayed at runtime for the event when the user is displaying a summarized description: View > Event Descriptions > Show Summarized Descriptions.

    The key in this attribute is mapped to the summary description in the eventLocale.xml file—for more information, see Event-Related Text.

  • detail - The string in this attribute is a key that points to the description that is displayed at runtime for the event when the user is displaying a detailed description: View > Event Descriptions > Show Detailed Descriptions.

    The key in this attribute is mapped to the detail description in the eventLocale.xml file—for more information, see Event-Related Text.

Procedure

  1. Open the eventDescriptions.xml file for the desired role.
  2. Locate the messageId for the event whose description you want to customize.

    Notice that events in eventDescriptions.xml are categorized by type, e.g., work item events, resource events, deployment events, etc.

  3. Note the key in the summary and/or detail attribute, depending on whether you want to change the summary description, detail description, or both.
  4. Open the eventLocale.xml file—for information about its location, see Event-Related Text.
  5. Locate the key(s) you noted in step 3.
  6. Modify the description in the text attribute as desired.

    Substitution tokens can be placed in the descriptions by including an event attribute name enclosed in braces. For example:

    text="Closed work item {applicationActivityName}"

    At runtime, the substitution tokens are replaced with values of the event attributes. For more information about substitution tokens, see Substitution Tokens.

  7. Save and close the eventLocale.xml file.
  8. Close the eventDescriptions.xml file.

Result

At runtime, if the messageId for an event is not found in the eventDescriptions.xml file, a default description for the event from the server is displayed in the description column for that event.

Also note that you can specify whether the summary or detail description is displayed by default when an event list is displayed. For information, see defaultEventDescription Attribute.