Creating an Agent

Before creating an agent, you must determine what the agent is supposed to accomplish. Essentially, this analysis answers the questions in the Agent Builder design window. The analysis should also include a general description of the agent.

You can create an agent in several ways. If you are in one of the design folders in the Designer's Work pane, you can click the Create Agent SmartIcon. You can also choose Create, Agent or Create, Design, Agent from the menu bar. In addition, you can copy agents from other databases or even the current database, paste them, and then modify the agent to suit your purposes. Figure 11.5 shows a new, untitled agent in the Designer's IDE.

Figure 11.5. The Agent Builder window.

Developers can create shared agents to handle tasks that are common to all users or the database itself. In most cases, end users will create personal agents in their mail file, for example. Developers, on the other hand, usually have one or two personal agents in an application for cleanup and corrections. Unlike views or folders, there is no way to create an agent that is shared and personal on first use. To make the agent shared, simply click the Shared Agent radio button on the Basics tab of the agent's InfoBox. Keep in mind that if the agent is to be run manually by a user, the agent will be limited by the user's ACL restrictions. For example, if an agent creates a new copy of a document, it will not work for a user who has Reader access to the database.

CAUTION

By default, an agent is set as scheduled in the Domino 6 Designer. Make sure you choose the Private radio button before saving a new agent if it is to be a private agent. When an agent is saved as private, only a person with Designer rights can change it from private to shared or shared to private.