Velocity Script Error - 5000 lexical error

[Miguel_Board1]

Howdy and Halp!

I'm hoping to find some help with a velocity script I am editing. I am just trying to hobble this together to meet a deadline. I am not a coder and just barely understand all that is happening in this script...just well enough to get into trouble. See below. 🙂

I have added a number of references to the field 'appointmentType'. The script is now producing an error:

This is the script I have in place:

#foreach ($appointmentItem in $appointment_cList) set( $todayCalObj =
#$date.toCalendar($date.toDate("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm",$date.get('yyyy-MM-dd
#HH:mm'))) ) set( $nextAppt = $date.toCalendar($date.toDate("yyyy-MM-dd
#HH:mm",${appointmentItem.appointmentDateTime})) ) set( $inFuture = (
#$nextAppt.getTimeInMillis() - $todayCalObj.getTimeInMillis() ) /
#86400000 ) if ( $inFuture > 1 && $inFuture < 2 &&
#($appointmentItem.appointmentStatus != "Reschedule" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentStatus != "Cancelled" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Benefit Renewal" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Clean and Check" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Change of Insurance Consult" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Complimentary Screening" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Complimentary Screening/Demo" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Demo Follow Up" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Diagnostic and Warranty" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Diagnostic Eval and Demo 3yrs +" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Diagnostic Eval/HAC(Hearing Test)& Hearing Aid Che" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Diagnostic Evaluation and Hearing Aid Evaluation" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Diagnostic Evaluation(Hearing Test)" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Earmold Fitting" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Earmold Impression" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Empire Plan Follow up" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Final Denial Consult" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Functional Gain Testing" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HA Exchange" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAC 45 day trial" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAC+D-Hearing Aid Check & Demo 3 yrs +" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAC-Hearing Aid Check less than 3 yrs." ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAE-Hearing Aid Evaluation" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAE/HAF -Hearing Aid Evaluation & Fitting" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "HAF--Hearing Aid Fitting" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Hearing Aid Adoption" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Hearing Aid Consult Follow-Up" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Hearing Aid Evaluation" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Home Delivery/Dispense" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Home Visit" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance Benefit Renewal Follow Up." ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance consult f/u needs Demo" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance Consult Follow Up/Fitting Upon Authoriza" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance Consult Initial W/WO Diagnostics" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance Final Denial Follow-Up" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance follow up after Dispense" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Insurance Resubmit" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Lost Device" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "New Patient Adult CAE" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "New Patient Pediatric CAE" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Office Visit/Referral Consult" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Payment" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Replacement Pick up" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Service/Repair" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Tinnitus Evaluation" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Warranty" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Warranty and Demo over 3 years" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentType != "Cancelled" ||
#$appointmentItem.appointmentStatus != "Warranty and HAC less than 3 years" ) )
#set( $nextAppointment =
#$convert.parseDate(${appointmentItem.appointmentDateTime},
#'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm') )
<p>$date.format('MM/dd/yyyy',$nextAppointment) at $date.format('hh:mm
a',$nextAppointment)<br /> <br>
#break else end
#end

The objective is to exclude the above appointment types and statuses from the email send. I am hoping this just a simple syntax error. Thanks to anyone that is able to have a gander.

[Rachel_Noble]

Hi! Are you saying you want to use this velocity script to exclude people from receiving an email? Is that not something you can accomplish by adjusting the smart list? 

If you're trying to adjust the value that appears in an email itself and exclude certain values from showing that one particular line, you might be able to build a quick segmentation and use dynamic content. Alternatively perhaps a formula field would do the trick.

[Miguel_Board1]

Hi Rachel,

The velocity script is working in conjunction with a Smart List, in order to determine the correct audience. The velocity script is referencing fields that live upon a Marketo Custom Object. In this scenario, solely referencing the exclusion list in the Smart List will not stop the velocity script from yielding results. The same criteria must be referenced within the velocity script.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Hi Miguel,

OK, this code is... I don't know how else to say it... not close to valid Velocity code.   All of those preceding # characters are breaking it horribly, and it has fatal syntax errors all around. Not sure even where the framework of the code came from — the approach of dividing by milliseconds to determine "in future" is def not how you do it, and the generation of Calendar objects is being done in a convoluted way.

Even if the rest of the code were fixed, the long compound condition doesn't seem to match with what you're trying to do.

This condition:

IF variable1 is not equal to value1 OR variable1 is not equal to value2 OR variable1 is not equal to value3

Is going to be true in all of these cases:

variable1 is equal to value1

variable1 is equal to value2

variable1 is equal to value3

Does that make sense?  You probably meant to express the condition

IF variable1 is not equal to value1 AND variable1 is not equal to value2 AND ...

[Miguel_Board1]

Hi Sanford,

The code came from a Marketo Consultant that was provided to our company, by Marketo last year. The framework of this script has taken almost a year to have it working and implemented. As Murphy would have it, another requirement (Appointment Type) came into play just before the Christmas break.

You are correct about the condition I was attempting to express. I am attempting to mimic the criteria of this Smart List, within the velocity script.

I was attempting to follow the path that was being used for excluding the 'Appointment Status' of Reschedule, Cancelled and Rescheduled...by simply changing the custom object field being referenced. Is the framework of this script worth trying to piece together?

[SanfordWhiteman]

You definitely don't want to do it with a giant compound condition — that's bad practice and creates unmaintainable code.

Use a collection and check to see if values are in/not-in the collection.

For example, here I'm creating lists of the "interesting" Statuses  and Types, then using !List.contains() — not-list-contains being the same as list-not-contains.

#set( $excludableAppointmentStatuses = ["Reschedule","Cancelled", "Warranty and HAC less than 3 years" ] )
#set( $excludableAppointmentTypes = ["Benefit Renewal","Clean and Check","Change of Insurance Consult"] )
#foreach( $appointmentItem in $appointment_cList )
#if( 
  !$excludableAppointmentStatuses.contains($appointmentItem.appointmentStatus) && 
  !$excludableAppointmentTypes.contains($appointmentItem.appointmentType) 
)
## ... now do whatever with $appointmentItem
#end
#end

[Miguel_Board1]

Hi Sanford, 
I greatly appreciate the advice. Your logic with referencing the collection makes a lot more sense. This is has been a very helpful learning experience. I have attempted to implement the suggested change but am now getting a bit of a different error:

Could the error have anything to do with some of the characters being used for the Appointment Types?..such as '+' and '/'

#foreach ($appointmentItem in $appointment_cList) set( $todayCalObj =
#$date.toCalendar($date.toDate("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm",$date.get('yyyy-MM-dd
#HH:mm'))) ) set( $nextAppt = $date.toCalendar($date.toDate("yyyy-MM-dd
#HH:mm",${appointmentItem.appointmentDateTime})) ) set( $inFuture = (
#$nextAppt.getTimeInMillis() - $todayCalObj.getTimeInMillis() ) /
#86400000 ) 
#if ( $inFuture > 1 && $inFuture < 2 &&
#set( $excludableAppointmentStatuses = ["Reschedule","Cancelled",“Rescheduled" ] )
#set( $excludableAppointmentTypes = ["Benefit Renewal","Clean and Check","Change of Insurance Consult","Complimentary Screening","Complimentary Screening/Demo","Demo Follow Up","Diagnostic and Warranty","Diagnostic Eval and Demo 3yrs +","Diagnostic Eval/HAC(Hearing Test)& Hearing Aid Check","Diagnostic Evaluation and Hearing Aid Evaluation","Diagnostic Evaluation(Hearing Test)","Earmold Fitting","Earmold Impression","Empire Plan Follow up","Final Denial Consult","Functional Gain Testing","HA Exchange","HAC 45 day trial","HAC+D-Hearing Aid Check & Demo 3 yrs +","HAC-Hearing Aid Check less than 3 yrs.","HAE-Hearing Aid Evaluation","HAE/HAF -Hearing Aid Evaluation & Fitting","HAF--Hearing Aid Fitting","Hearing Aid Adoption","Hearing Aid Consult Follow-Up","Hearing Aid Evaluation","Home Delivery/Dispense","Home Visit","Insurance Benefit Renewal Follow Up.","Insurance change follow up","Insurance consult f/u needs Demo","Insurance Consult Follow Up/Fitting Upon Authorization","Insurance Consult Initial W/WO Diagnostics","Insurance Final Denial Follow-Up","Insurance follow up after Dispense","Insurance Resubmit","Lost Device","New Patient Adult CAE","New Patient Pediatric CAE","Office Visit/Referral Consult","Payment","Replacement Pick up","Service/Repair","Tinnitus Evaluation","Warranty","Warranty and Demo over 3 years","Warranty and HAC less than 3 years"] )
#foreach( $appointmentItem in $appointment_cList )
#if( 
!$excludableAppointmentStatuses.contains($appointmentItem.appointmentStatus) && 
!$excludableAppointmentTypes.contains($appointmentItem.appointmentType) 
)
#set( $nextAppointment =
#$convert.parseDate(${appointmentItem.appointmentDateTime},
#'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm') )
<p>$date.format('MM/dd/yyyy',$nextAppointment) at $date.format('hh:mm
a',$nextAppointment)<br /> <br>
#break else end
#end

Attempting to google '5000 lexical error' does not bring back many helpful returns. Thanks, again.

[SanfordWhiteman]

The syntax is still totally messed up.... it looks very little like real Velocity, and a if someone contributed it, I hope they didn't get paid! (Sorry to vent, pretty annoyed that someone is selling themselves as a developer, doing work like this, and leaving you with it.)

It would never even compile, I'm not talking about the business logic it's trying to represent. For example, there are hash # characters just sprinkled throughout it. Also, you have the wrong type of quotation marks in one place — double smart quotes never work in code, only double straight quotes.

In Velocity, hash characters begin the core #directives like #if, #else, #set, #foreach, etc. as well as #macros.

You typically see them only on the left margin, as in

#set( $variable = "a value" )
#foreach( $item in $aListOfObjects )
#if( $item.equals("some condition") )
## do something
#end
#end

Because the syntax is so messed up, it's too hard to see what's actually intended.

Instead, why don't you detail, in pseudo-code — don't try to write Velocity itself — the intended business logic, including the input data, output formats, conditions/checks , and list iteration. Then perhaps we can work out the Velocity from scratch.

[Miguel_Board1]

Hi Sanford,

Our use of Marketo is pretty unique. Our company provides professional services for Audiologists. We have a number of audiologists that use our Marketing Automation service with each being separated into their own workspace with their own branded domain.

We are using a Marketo Custom Object with appointment data, in order to send appointment reminders. Each appointment entry is unique and we are using the Custom Object fields ‘appointmentDateTime’,’appointmentType’ and ‘appointmentStatus’ to determine if and when an appointment reminder should be sent out.

The appointment reminders send daily in the AM and are looking in the future 24-48 hours for qualifying appointments. If an appointment status is not rescheduled or cancelled and the appointment type is not being specifically excluded from the send, an email should go out.

It is possible for a person to have multiple appointments scheduled upon the same day that could qualify for the appointment reminder send. In order to keep it simple, an appointment reminder should only be sent to the first appointment of the day. We want to make sure that only one appointment is referenced in any email sent.

While the appointment status exclusion will remain consistent for all of our audiology practices, the values for appointment type can be very custom. The collection of appointment types would need to be able to be updated, for each practice.

We are currently adjusting the appointment time we send to Marketo (via the API) by the difference between the practice’s timezone and Central time (ex: Pacific time substract 2 hours, Eastern time add 1 hour) to account for how Marketo handles time.

Thank you for looking into this.

[dsh_community]

Miguel - you might want to use dedicated appointment software. There are HIPAA concerns at play here. Also there are plenty of robust solutions out there for medical appointments. 

https://www.trustradius.com/medical-scheduling

https://www.capterra.com/medical-scheduling-software/

https://www.softwareadvice.com/medical/patient-scheduling-software-comparison/