how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

benjamins — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:39:07 GMT

I do something like

local!doesFieldExist: index(ri!myCDT, "field", "oldVersion") = "oldVersion"

Then in my SAIL code perform checks to see if doesFieldExist = true. If its true, dont display the section which allows the user to be able to save the form and move on.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

normanc — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 12:24:50 GMT

Perhaps try converting the CDT to text using toxml() and check if the text contains an element for the new field.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

Chris — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 20:24:30 GMT

No problem. Note since your process instance and CDT are essentially hard coded together based on their configuration at start time, you will need some similar approach here as there are no OOTB functions to cleanly determine field existence within a CDT. Utilizing "if(version > 1 .." will provide scalability for future versions without any additional changes to these fields, once configured.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

tommyc0001 — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 20:04:38 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion. This seems like a possible solution but I don't feel comfortable hardcoding behaviors based on versions as we add fields around once a month.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

tommyc0001 — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:59:37 GMT

Hi Mike,

Actually that's what we are currently doing at the moment. Our processes are sometimes over a year long and many new fields have been introduced due to the agile approach, we can not maintain an ever growing list of ri!hasFieldXYZ inputs in our interface.

We have also tried to initialize a value for the new fields in the process and do a check to show the field when the field isn't prepopulated. For Legal reason we can't prepopulate some fields though.

Thanks,
Tommy

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

Chris — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:55:58 GMT

Expanding on Mike's suggestion, what I usually do here is add a field to the CDT during the next update, integer value, named "version". Set this in the CDT at process initiation, I use a pv!version variable, set at 2 at this time and save into your CDT prior to any Write to DS (usually script task at the very beginning). When utilizing the pv! you can increment this value in the model any time you will be adding CDT fields or making changes that affect how your forms or sub processes will process going forward.

On your forms, utilize a local version variable with the definition:

local!version: index(ri!CDT,"version",1)

This will default to 1 if the version field is not present (legacy instances), or reflect 2 for newer instances. From there, you can implement logic in the form processing based on which version of your CDT is present, without manipulating any running instances, such as, if(local!version>1, show new fields, do nothing). This allows scalability on your future versioning as well.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

Mike Schmitt — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:11:11 GMT

The way I've handled this before is to pass in a new parameter to the form, i.e. ri!isNewVersion (or ri!hasFieldXYZ), where the process model is updated to pass a value of true() into the form, so that you can use in-form logic to tell whether you're in a new instance or not. The nomenclature is completely up to you but hopefully you get the picture.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

tommyc0001 — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 18:45:37 GMT

I've tried that but the problem is that I'll always be updating the CDT. I do not want to hard code the different types of CDT there is for each new field.

RE: how to check if field does not exist in old CDT

bryant.st39 — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 18:40:23 GMT

You could do a typeof() to return the data type for the variable and compare to a refernce, if they are equal then require C, else hide it.