fileUploadField saveInTo

All of this is expected behaviour. Trying to build such a generic component, especially for file uploads is a challenging task.

At the end of this blog post, I give a short explanation of the way I do this kind of "File-upload Anywhere" component.

https://appian.rocks/2024/05/20/file-upload-in-appian/

What is your StartProcess call actually doing?  Are you passing in the uploaded Doc IDs?  Are you doing so one at a time, or as an array?  I would note that these would be UN-submitted doc IDs most likely, and if so they probably won't do what you want (unless you're just noting the raw numeric IDs to a DB table or something).  Can you share a code snippet of how you're constructing this call, so we don't have to guess?

Hi Mike,

I am trying to capture the Document IDs and constructing the CDT to have some other data points. And calling the process to write this data to DB.
It is working fine when I upload single document. But when I upload multiple, saveInTo is called two times and triggering two instances.
And also, when I upload 2 or more documents getting the below error.

Basically, I want to capture the document IDs uploaded in all fileUploadFields. However, most of our tables don't have records and also documents are stored in numerous different tables. Also, client don't want to see any visible changes in UIs

I don't know if I can even guess at any suggestions (even assuming anything would work around this issue) without seeing the actual code.

Mike Schmitt said:

Can you share a code snippet of how you're constructing this call, so we don't have to guess?

a!localVariables(
  /*Contains all documents uploaded in file upload*/
  local!allUploadedDocuments: a!refreshVariable(
    value: ri!value,
    refreshOnReferencedVarChange: false
  ),
  /*Contains documents which are active in file upload field*/
  local!activeDocuments: a!refreshVariable(
    value: ri!value,
    refreshOnReferencedVarChange: false
  ),
  /*Contains all documents which needs to be deleted*/
  local!documentsToDelete,
  a!fileUploadField(
    label: ri!label,
    labelPosition: a!defaultValue(value: ri!labelPosition, default: "ABOVE"),
    instructions: ri!instructions,
    helpTooltip: ri!helpTooltip,
    target: ri!target,
    fileNames: ri!fileNames,
    fileDescriptions: ri!fileDescriptions,
    maxSelections: ri!maxSelections,
    value: local!activeDocuments,
    saveInto: {
      a!save(local!activeDocuments,save!value),
      ri!saveInto,
      a!save(
        local!allUploadedDocuments,
        reject(
          a!isNullOrEmpty(_),
          union(
            tointeger(local!activeDocuments),
            tointeger(local!allUploadedDocuments)
          )
        )
      ),
      a!save(
        local!documentsToDelete,
        difference(
          tointeger(local!allUploadedDocuments),
          tointeger(local!activeDocuments)
        )
      ),
        a!startProcess(
          processModel: cons!ACO_PM_INSERT_AND_DELETE_DOCUMENT_DETAILS,
          processParameters: {
            activeDocs: local!activeDocuments,
            deletedDocs: local!documentsToDelete,
            appID: ri!appID,
            requestID: ri!requestID,
            documentTags: ri!documentTags
          },
          onSuccess: {
            a!save(
              local!allUploadedDocuments,
              difference(
                tointeger(local!allUploadedDocuments),
                tointeger(local!documentsToDelete)
              )
            ),
            a!save(
              local!documentsToDelete,
              null
            )
          }
        )
    },
    required: a!defaultValue(value: ri!required, default: false),
    requiredMessage: ri!requiredMessage,
    disabled: a!defaultValue(value: ri!disabled, default: false),
    validations: ri!validations,
    validationGroup: ri!validationGroup,
    buttonStyle: a!defaultValue(
      value: ri!buttonStyle,
      default: "SECONDARY"
    ),
    buttonSize: a!defaultValue(value: ri!buttonSize, default: "SMALL"),
    accessibilityText: ri!accessibilityText,
    showWhen: a!defaultValue(value: ri!showWhen, default: true),
    uploadMethods: ri!uploadMethods,
    buttonDisplay: ri!buttonDisplay,
    placeholder: ri!placeholder,
    showVirusScanMessage: a!defaultValue(
      value: ri!showVirusScanMessage,
      default: false
    )
  )
)

Above code the common component which can be called in all existing fileUploadField.

In process model writing and deleting the data from DB.

So I'm afraid the plain answer here is that this has grown too bloated for its own good - the File Upload Field is already not very flexible sadly, and you're trying to make it do everything all at once.  Having a single File Upload Field handle multiple files is already pretty clumsy even when the use case and implementation is strictly kept pretty simple - and i fear this is an example of what happens otherwise. 

For better or worse I pretty much never use a multiple-enabled upload field anywhere unless i'm doing a VERY SIMPLIFIED bulk upload (and even then it's super rare).  All other times I enforce that my forms deal with a single upload at a time (or at least a single upload per instance of the upload field); often I force a "submit" click if possible (or some other commit click etc).  Either of these approaches (despite the fact that they would both violate the requisites you laid out) would likely solve the "multiple smart services" issue as the upload field attempts to loop over the newly-uploaded files and inadvertently tries to launch multiple startProcess calls.  Sadly I don't think current functionality exists to let you get around this without *some* compromise.

Hi riyazn2499 , I am also facing the same issue did you find any solution to trigger process model only once?

What exactly do you mean with "same issue"?

Hi Stefan Helzle 

I am trying to change the filenames while uploading the files without submitting

I used a!submituploadfiles function to upload documents and triggering process model in saveInto to change doc names

when i am uploading multiple docs saveInto executing multiple times with respect to number of docs. if i upload 3 documents at a time 3 instances are getting created and throughing error as cant execute smartservice second time

You can only use a single smart service function in a saveInto. You will have to find a different way.

BTW, why do you need to change file names?