Validation Group is not working properly

Question

I have added validation group in a datefield and added the same on a button. But the validation is triggered instantly on change of dates. My requirement is to validate the date field which is added in a grid layout on click of a button.

Mike Schmitt · Accepted Answer

Personally I've always found ValidationGroup functionality to be unintuitive and cumbersome to implement, use, and/or test, with results that are inconsistent with expectations or designed intentions. Thus I typically use other methods to enforce validations under certain circumstances, beginning with making sure my forms are scope-limited where possible, and also, abstracting certain form functionality using local variables (such as variables keeping track of validation status of certain elements if needed). Without knowing a bit more detail about your particular requirement or intended design, it's hard to offer much more of a concrete suggestion than this.

Richard Michaelis · Answer

I am compleetly with Mike Schmitt there. The benefit of the validationGroup functionality depends strongly on your use case. "Validations" are evaluated instantly. valdiationGroup is more focusing on "validate true" parameter of an buttonWidget. This means mostly a focus on required fields. 
 Check out the following approaches: 
 ValidationMessages: -> Validation Message - Appian 21.3 
 R equired Messages: Configure Buttons with Conditional Requiredness - Appian 21.3

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Thanks for posting some generic code I could just copy into an interface editor, that's really helpful and I have it working on my environment now. Could you talk a bit more about what exactly the validation is meant to do, and what you would like the end user's experience to be, step by step? I see you're setting the validation local variable upon click of the Submit button, though i'm a little unclear why you're setting the value there instead of upon initial declaration and allowing the validation error to show up naturally as soon as the invalid data is entered.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

I believe you can handle such a condition on the declaration of your validation value instead of waiting until submit. If you really need to wait until submit for certain issues, I always suggest using a!validationMessage() which has the option to only evaluate at form submit time [i've added a separate example of this which fires if one of the dates is left blank]. 
 Here is my suggested modification to your code which I'm hoping will hold off on showing validation errors until after both dates are entered: 
 a!localVariables(
 local!testData: {
 {
 serialNumber: 1,
 date1: today(),
 date2: today() + 10
 },
 {
 serialNumber: 2,
 date1: today() + 10,
 date2: today() + 20
 },

 },
 local!columnHasDateValidationError: a!refreshVariable(
 value: a!forEach(
 local!testData,
 if(
 or(
 isnull(fv!item.date1),
 isnull(fv!item.date2)
 ),
 false(),
 todate(fv!item.date2) < todate(fv!item.date1)
 )
 ),
 refreshAlways: false()
 ),
 
 a!formLayout(
 contents: {
 a!boxLayout(
 label: "Test Data",
 contents: a!gridLayout(
 emptyGridMessage: "No items available",
 headerCells: {
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "Serial Number"),
 a!forEach(
 items: local!testData,
 expression: a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: fv!item.serialNumber)
 )
 },
 rows: {
 a!gridRowLayout(
 contents: {
 a!richTextDisplayField(
 value: a!richTextItem_18r1(text: "Serial Number", )
 ),
 a!forEach(
 local!testData,
 a!tagField(
 tags: a!tagItem(
 text: fv!item.serialNumber,
 textColor: "STANDARD"
 )
 )
 )
 }
 ),
 a!gridRowLayout(
 contents: {
 a!richTextDisplayField(value: a!richTextItem(text: "Date 1")),
 a!forEach(
 local!testData,
 a!dateField(
 label: "Date 1",
 labelPosition: "ADJACENT",
 value: fv!item.date1,
 saveInto: fv!item.date1,
 validations: if(local!columnHasDateValidationError[fv!index], "Error: Date 2 must be greater than Date 1", "")
 )
 )
 }
 ),
 a!gridRowLayout(
 contents: {
 a!richTextDisplayField(value: a!richTextItem(text: "Date 2")),
 a!forEach(
 local!testData,
 a!dateField(
 label: "Date 2",
 labelPosition: "ADJACENT",
 value: fv!item.date2,
 saveInto: fv!item.date2,

 )
 )
 }
 ),

 }
 )
 )
 },
 validations: {
 a!validationMessage(
 messagE: "All Dates must be populated.",
 validateAfter: "SUBMIT",
 showWhen: or(
 a!forEach(
 local!testData,
 or(
 isnull(fv!item.date1),
 isnull(fv!item.date2)
 )
 )
 )
 )
 },
 buttons: a!buttonLayout(
 primaryButtons: {
 a!buttonWidget(
 label: "Submit",
 value: "Submit",
 saveInto: {
 a!save(
 ri!cancel,
 false()
 )
 /*a!save(*/
 /*local!isValidMcdDate,*/
 /*a!forEach(*/
 /*local!testData,*/
 /*if(*/
 /*todate(fv!item.date1) > todate(fv!item.date2),*/
 /*true(),*/
 /*null*/
 /*)*/
 /*)*/
 /*),*/

 },
 submit: true,
 style: "PRIMARY",
 validate: true(),

 )
 },
 secondaryButtons: {
 a!buttonWidget(
 label: "Cancel",
 value: true,
 saveInto: ri!cancel,
 submit: true,
 style: "NORMAL",
 validate: false
 )
 }
 ),

 )
)

Validation Group is not working properly

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