For those of you who already participate in the Toad Beta Testing program (www.toadsoft.com ), you will no doubt, have already played with this. I would encourage as many of you as possible to join, if you can make the time, since you have the power to help influence future product direction.

How many of you have heard of or used SQL Recall – a feature that’s been in Toad for many years now?

Well, this is a similar concept.

I want to paint a scenario for you. Let’s imagine, as part of your job, you have to export data from a data grid in Toad to an Excel spreadsheet and distribute it to someone in your organization. You first connect to the right database, navigate to the right schema and then select the table in Schema Browser. You click the data tab in Schema Browser, then right-click in the data grid to open the Save As dialog box. You choose “XLS File” as the format and make any necessary changes to the Options. You then specify the path and filename on your local or network drive. Then you go into Outlook, compose an email and attach the spreadsheet to the email and send.

How laborious is that if you have to do it on a regular basis ! (same table data, same recipient)

So, what if you could encapsulate those ‘actions’ into something (a bit like like an object) ? That thing would then be able to be re-used, shared, and distributed.

Well, that thing is called an Action.

An ‘Action’ is defined as an operation or series of operations in Toad which have met the user criteria necessary to justify the persistence of the operation to disk for later recall and use.  Every Action is defined in plain text, can be scheduled, can be executed via the command-line, can be performed as part of a collection of Actions, can be copied and pasted via the clipboard and can be used to load the GUI from which they were created.

Toad windows can also be ‘loaded’ with an Action, meaning all controls and settings are changed to reflect the Action.  Windows can also be ‘saved’ to Actions or the clipboard, to preserve their current settings.  This mechanism replaces the wide variety of ways windows are currently loading and saving their settings.

Therefore, recalling an Action is simply the ability to re-perform a distinct operation or sequence of operations in Toad such as dropping a table, transferring a file via FTP, exporting DDL, sending an email and a myriad of other operations which currently exist or will exist in the future.

An Action Set can be created which is a collection of Actions for the purpose of organization.  Any number of Action Sets can be created via the Action Palette.  An Action Set itself can be executed, which is simply the execution of all the Actions contained within it.  As with Actions, Action Sets will be able to be scheduled, and they can currently be executed via command-line.

How do I know whether something can be made into an Action?

Every Toad window which supports Actions has a lightning bolt in its window caption, in the upper right.  The Lightning Bolt opens the Action Prompt Window and is the means by which Toad windows can create and load Actions.

Scheduled Actions can also be viewed via the Utilities > Task Scheduler window.

This is great! I can think of some really cool ideas right now!

Well, the good news for you is that the Toad development team is currently looking for a lot of user feedback on which Toad operations to “wrap” into an Action.  In order to assist them and not waste valuable development time wrapping Actions which may not be used as frequently as others, please tell us what you would like.  We see potential candidates as the various Export and Import windows as well as reports and so forth. 

Keep in mind that we can also create new Actions which do not have any corresponding Toad window or even existing operation.  For instance we will be designing an Action to convert script files to ANSI join syntax or vice-versa.  This has been a common use of the Query Builder (formerly SQL Modeler) window and seems an excellent candidate for an Action.  Keep an open mind about the possibilities here.  Would a “Create Table” Action be useful as perhaps a template, when many tables are being created, to assist in pre-loading the GUI?  How about the various operations when right-clicking a Table in the Schema Browser?  What about creating an Action which is a series of operations to assist in workflow?

Please let us know – voice your opinion by responding to this Blog or by going to the Community tab on Toad World.  Thanks!

So, where can I store my completed Actions?

The answer is – in the Action Palette.

This is a GUI View window (View > Action Palette – ensure you aren’t using custom menus which don’t have it yet !) akin to the Project Manager and is the means by which Actions and Action Sets can be organized, scheduled, named and so forth.  It is also a powerful way to create new Actions instead of using Toad interactively.

Could I execute Actions without having to launch Toad ?

 Sure, you can run Actions from the Command Line. (Note: for those of you who may be unaware, Toad has always had the capability of being launched from the Command Line with a view to performing a specific task. For more information on Command Line execution, go to Toad Help | Index tab and search for the keywords “command line”)

To execute Actions via the Command Line, use the –a parameter and specify the Action, Action Set or series of both.  If specifying only the Action, the Action name must be unique across all Action Sets or else an entry will be made in the Action Log about more than one Action found. To fully qualify an Action, use ->.  Some examples follow.

The following runs an Action Set called “MondayQueries.”  It will execute all Actions within the Action Set: 

Toad.exe –a “MondayQueries”

The following runs an Action Set called “Email Mom”.  Only one Action by that name in the entire datafile can exist: 

Toad.exe – a “Email Mom”

The following runs a fully qualified Action, since there may be more than one Action by the name “EmpQuery”: 

Toad.exe –a “CommonQueries->EmpQuery”

The following runs a series of Actions and Action Sets: 

Toad.exe –a “CommonQueries” “EmailSet->Email Mom” “SalesReports->MondayReport”

Separate more than one Action or Action Set with a space and surround each item with double-quotes. 

How can I schedule an Action?

To Schedule an Action, find it in the Action Palette.  A Search mechanism exists if needed.  The interface is the common Windows Task Scheduler interface.  Notice that the Task Scheduler window is preloaded with the necessary command-line and parameter information.  Compare the parameter and you will see it matches the necessary syntax as described in the ‘Command Line Usage’ section.  If an Action already has a Schedule, clicking the Schedule button will open the Edit Task Schedule window so the Schedule can be changed or removed.