Setting an app level item based on :APP_USER

Question

I am trying to set an application level item right after I log in and I want the value to be based on the setting of :APP_USER. I created an application level process at the "On New Session: After Authentication" point containing the following code:
select id into :F107_VOTER
from el_person
where userid = :APP_USER;
This works fine when I run the page from the builder, but fails when I fire up a separate browser session and access the app directly. I'm suspicious that perhaps APP_USER built in item is not defined when the process point runs. Can someone confirm when APP_USER is set relative to this application level process point and/or perhaps suggest an alternative way to initialize an application level item that is dependent on APP_USER?

Answer 1

Bill,
The first page that runs in your new session is the login page. So your process runs at the very first opportunity (On New Session:After Authentication) when APP_USER is null, which doesn't do what you want. The name of that process point is misleading, it means after authentication for the current page. For the login page, which is necessarily a public page, the authentication steps are completed immediately after the show processing begins. So then you enter username/password and submit the login page which takes you to the first real page in the app, but still in that same session, but the process has already fired and won't run again.
I suggest that you create another application item, F107_VOTER_INITIALIZED, change the process point to be Before Header, add a condition so that it runs only if F107_VOTER_INITIALIZED is null, then have the process run the query and set the initialization flag to a non-null value. Of course F107_VOTER itself can be the initialization flag if it is to remain constant throughout the session.
Scott