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Comparison for two rows of same record data

pavang5769
Certified Senior Developer

We have a requirement for comparison of same record type data and get the difference of the data & columns. We are aware of "CDT Diff Utilities" which does the same operation and gives the expected output. However we are looking for similar way of plugin availability or workaround to achieve the desired functionality.

Note: We are not looking for manual comparison of the record fields and the data, as we need to perform the comparison across all record types in the application and it will be become very tedious process to achieve by manual comparison.

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Parents
  • 0
    Certified Lead Developer

    In my experience this is a fairly common use case during review cycles, where the reviewers of edits to a record want to see what changed in an easily digestible way. Whether it's implemented via formal audit tables (outside of or supplemental to Record Events) or something more ad hoc, my approach is generally the same. Here is some prototype code on my current project that we'll productionize in a couple of weeks.

    Pre-requisites:

    • TCG_findData is a type-safe and null-safe encapsulation around index/wherecontains with an index() wrapper for the select parameter
    • A rule that rejects null elements from an array
    • Reference data is a rule input that allows id-based integers to be replaced with human-readable text. Useful for lookup labels and any other foreign-key related data.
      List of a!map()
      • field: <field in fromData/toData with a value that needs to be replaced>,
      • referenceData: <list of lookup or related record data; should contain the id and human-readable text>
      • idField: Used to index into the reference data
      • labelField: Is the field in the reference data that has the human-readable text

    This could be made even better if there were an Appian function to return a record field's Display Name given just the record field rather than explicitly hardcoding it (e.g. the 25.2 feature), but so far I haven't been able to figure that out.

    a!localVariables(
  local!fromKeys: a!defaultValue(ri!fields, a!keys(ri!fromData)),
  local!toKeys: a!defaultValue(ri!fields, a!keys(ri!toData)),
  rule!JS_rejectNull({
    a!forEach(
      union(local!fromKeys, local!toKeys),
      a!localVariables(
        local!a:  index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),
        local!b:  index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),
        local!referenceData: rule!TCG_findData(
          data_any: ri!referenceData,
          field_any: "field",
          value_any: fv!item,
          select_any: 1,
        ),
        a!match(
          value: null,
          whenTrue: and(a!isNullOrEmpty(local!a), a!isNullOrEmpty(local!b)),
          then: null,
          whenTrue: and(
            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(local!a),
            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(local!b),
            local!a = local!b,
          ),
          then: null,
          default: a!map(
            field: rule!JS_pascalToReadable(tostring(fv!item)),
            from: if(
              a!isNullOrEmpty(local!referenceData),
              tostring(a!defaultValue(index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),"---")),
              rule!TCG_findData(
                data_any: local!referenceData.data,
                field_any: local!referenceData.idField,
                value_any: index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),
                select_any: local!referenceData.labelField,
              )[1]
            ),
            to: if(
              a!isNullOrEmpty(local!referenceData),
              tostring(a!defaultValue(index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),"---")),
              rule!TCG_findData(
                data_any: local!referenceData.data,
                field_any: local!referenceData.idField,
                value_any: index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),
                select_any: local!referenceData.labelField,
              )[1]
            ),
          ),
        )
      )
    ),
  })
)

Reply
  • 0
    Certified Lead Developer

    In my experience this is a fairly common use case during review cycles, where the reviewers of edits to a record want to see what changed in an easily digestible way. Whether it's implemented via formal audit tables (outside of or supplemental to Record Events) or something more ad hoc, my approach is generally the same. Here is some prototype code on my current project that we'll productionize in a couple of weeks.

    Pre-requisites:

    • TCG_findData is a type-safe and null-safe encapsulation around index/wherecontains with an index() wrapper for the select parameter
    • A rule that rejects null elements from an array
    • Reference data is a rule input that allows id-based integers to be replaced with human-readable text. Useful for lookup labels and any other foreign-key related data.
      List of a!map()
      • field: <field in fromData/toData with a value that needs to be replaced>,
      • referenceData: <list of lookup or related record data; should contain the id and human-readable text>
      • idField: Used to index into the reference data
      • labelField: Is the field in the reference data that has the human-readable text

    This could be made even better if there were an Appian function to return a record field's Display Name given just the record field rather than explicitly hardcoding it (e.g. the 25.2 feature), but so far I haven't been able to figure that out.

    a!localVariables(
  local!fromKeys: a!defaultValue(ri!fields, a!keys(ri!fromData)),
  local!toKeys: a!defaultValue(ri!fields, a!keys(ri!toData)),
  rule!JS_rejectNull({
    a!forEach(
      union(local!fromKeys, local!toKeys),
      a!localVariables(
        local!a:  index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),
        local!b:  index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),
        local!referenceData: rule!TCG_findData(
          data_any: ri!referenceData,
          field_any: "field",
          value_any: fv!item,
          select_any: 1,
        ),
        a!match(
          value: null,
          whenTrue: and(a!isNullOrEmpty(local!a), a!isNullOrEmpty(local!b)),
          then: null,
          whenTrue: and(
            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(local!a),
            a!isNotNullOrEmpty(local!b),
            local!a = local!b,
          ),
          then: null,
          default: a!map(
            field: rule!JS_pascalToReadable(tostring(fv!item)),
            from: if(
              a!isNullOrEmpty(local!referenceData),
              tostring(a!defaultValue(index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),"---")),
              rule!TCG_findData(
                data_any: local!referenceData.data,
                field_any: local!referenceData.idField,
                value_any: index(ri!fromData, fv!item, null),
                select_any: local!referenceData.labelField,
              )[1]
            ),
            to: if(
              a!isNullOrEmpty(local!referenceData),
              tostring(a!defaultValue(index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),"---")),
              rule!TCG_findData(
                data_any: local!referenceData.data,
                field_any: local!referenceData.idField,
                value_any: index(ri!toData, fv!item, null),
                select_any: local!referenceData.labelField,
              )[1]
            ),
          ),
        )
      )
    ),
  })
)

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