RuleInput, multidropdown

Question

a!localVariables(
 local!lineOfBusiness: rule!LCM_getLineOfBusinesses(lobkey: null(), lobcode: null()),
 local!attorneys: rule!LCM_getAttorneys(soeid: null(), attorneykey: null()),
 local!selectedAttorney,
 local!selectedAttorneyLOB,
 local!attorneyLOB: { a!map(attorneykey: null(), lobkey: null()) },
 a!formLayout(
 label: "Form",
 contents: {
 a!boxLayout(
 label: "Attorney - Line of Businesses",
 contents: {
 a!gridLayout(
 label: "",
 labelPosition: "ABOVE",
 totalCount: count(local!attorneyLOB),
 headerCells: {
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "Attorney(s)"),
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "Line of Business"),
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "")
 },
 columnConfigs: {
 a!gridLayoutColumnConfig(width: "DISTRIBUTE", weight: 1),
 a!gridLayoutColumnConfig(width: "DISTRIBUTE", weight: 1),
 a!gridLayoutColumnConfig(width: "ICON")
 },
 rows: {
 a!forEach(
 items: local!attorneyLOB,
 expression: a!gridRowLayout(
 contents: {
 a!dropdownField(
 label: "Attorney(s)" & fv!index,
 labelPosition: "ABOVE",
 helpTooltip: "Attorney(s)",
 placeholder: "Select a Attorney",
 choiceLabels: index(local!attorneys, "name", ""),
 choiceValues: index(local!attorneys, "attorneykey", ""),
 value: fv!item.attorneykey,
 saveInto: 
 {
 fv!item.attorneykey,
 a!save(
 target: ri!intakeattorneys,
 value: a!forEach(
 items: local!attorneyLOB,
 expression: {AttorneyKey: fv!item.attorneykey}
 )
 )
 },
 required: true
 ),
 a!multipleDropdownField(
 label: "LOB" & fv!index,
 labelPosition: "ABOVE",
 placeholder: "Select a Line of Business",
 choiceLabels: index(local!lineOfBusiness, "lobname", ""),
 choiceValues: index(local!lineOfBusiness, "lobkey", ""),
 value: fv!item.lobkey,
 saveInto: {fv!item.lobkey,
 
 a!save(
 ri!attorneyLineOfBusiness,
 value: a!forEach(
 items: local!attorneyLOB,
 expression: {attorneykey: fv!item.attorneykey, 
 lobkey: 
 a!forEach(
 items: fv!item.lobkey,
 expression: {lobkey: fv!item}
 )
 }
 )
 )
 },
 required: true
 ),
 a!imageField(
 label: "delete " & fv!index,
 images: a!documentImage(
 document: a!iconIndicator("REMOVE"),
 altText: "Remove",
 caption: "Remove ",
 link: a!dynamicLink(
 value: fv!index,
 saveInto: {
 a!save(
 local!attorneyLOB,
 remove(local!attorneyLOB, save!value)
 )
 },
 
 ),
 showWhen: fv!index > 1
 ),
 size: "ICON"
 )
 }
 )
 )
 },
 selectionSaveInto: {},
 validations: {},
 shadeAlternateRows: true,
 addRowLink: a!dynamicLink(
 label: "Add",
 saveInto: {
 a!save(
 local!attorneyLOB,
 append(local!attorneyLOB, save!value)
 )
 }
 ),
 rowHeader: 1
 )
 },
 style: "STANDARD",
 marginBelow: "STANDARD"
 )
 },
 buttons: a!buttonLayout(
 primaryButtons: {
 a!buttonWidget(
 label: "Submit",
 submit: true,
 style: "PRIMARY"
 )
 },
 secondaryButtons: {
 a!buttonWidget(
 label: "Cancel",
 value: true,
 saveInto: ri!cancel,
 submit: true,
 style: "NORMAL",
 validate: false
 )
 }
 )
 )
) Hi, 
 I have a user input with editable grid where each row will have 2 dropdowns. 
 The first dropdown "Attorney(s)" is a single selection where as "Line of Business" is a multiselection. 
 I have able to save the attorneykey to the rule input (black arrow in the image), where as I was unable to save/pass lobkey (multiple values) into the rule input. 
 Can someone give an idea who can I fix this. Thanks in advance.

Mike Schmitt · Accepted Answer

You can always off-shift your editable grid rows into a local variable instead of directly reading/writing to the Rule Input - in that case you'd declare a "blank" one initially in the local variable definition, then in the "submit" button you'd add an a!save() statemen that mirrors the value of the local variable into the rule input.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

What is the CDT definition for the "attourneyLineOfBusiness" rule input? Is the "lobkey" property single or multiple? 
 It looks like every time the multiple dropdown is changed (regardless of the row) you're attempting to overwrite the value of "ri!attourneyLineOfBusiness" with a copy stored in the local!attourneyLOB dictionary where the "lobkey" property is actually multiple values. If your CDT doesn't have that field defined as an array, then it simply won't work. I'd also caution that this might not be the best approach for storing multiple row-related values, though i suppose it could work with some fixes to your existing code (i'd suggest fixing the indentation in your a!forEach loops in your saveInto and consider whether you need to list the "lobkey" property name quite so many times, for one...)

Mike Schmitt · Answer

If you need the "lobkey" field to be multiple in the context of any single item with the primary key "alobkey", then to store this in the database you'd need to make a secondary linked table, having a many-to-one relationship with the "attourneylineofbusiness" table. This is because a SQL table doesn't handle nesting within individual columns of a single table. 
 If your need is more low-key, then an alternate way to handle this would be to create a column (let's call it "lobKeyJsonString", TEXT type, and within that, you can store a JSON string which is the result of wrapping your selected "lob key" entries first in a simple array and then converting to a JSON string. that would look something like this: a!multipleDropdownField(
 label: "LOB" & fv!index,
 labelPosition: "ABOVE",
 placeholder: "Select a Line of Business",
 choiceLabels: index(local!lineOfBusiness, "lobname", ""),
 choiceValues: index(local!lineOfBusiness, "lobkey", ""),
 value: a!fromJson(a!defaultValue(fv!item.lobKeyJsonString, "[]")),
 saveInto: {
 a!save(
 fv!item.lobKeyJsonString,
 a!toJson(save!value)
 )
 },
 required: true
)

Mike Schmitt · Answer

I think you will need to simplify this somewhat. At the moment you have a whole 3(!!) levels of nested a!forEach statements, just in the circled portion - you shouldn't need nearly this many, IMHO. 
 Also: you might consider making the new "aLineOfBusinessLobKey" CDT a child (nested) CDT of your original one. I don't do this very often but this is probably a good use case for that - it would simplify the linking/writing of foreign keys to the child table values at write-time, as far as I remember.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

If the child CDT is nested in the parent CDT, you can save directly into its value(s) in the parent row of the editable grid by saving into "fv!item. childCdtPropertyName ". That would require one and only one a!forEach level in the saveInto of the multiple dropdown field - looping over every value currently in the "save!value" of the dropdown, and initializing a child CDT entry for it. In this manner you should be able to base the Editable Grid rows directly on the Rule Input CDT and skip the local dictionary stage.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Here's a 100% generic form relying on a generic, relatively-freshly-created parent/child CDT pair, which handles the "rows of child CDT per parent row based on multi dropdown value" concept. 
 a!formLayout(
 label: "Simple Submit form",
 
 contents: {
 a!gridLayout(
 label: "test grid",
 headerCells: {
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "label"),
 a!gridLayoutHeaderCell(label: "multiple")
 },
 rows: a!forEach(
 ri!parentCdt,
 a!gridRowLayout(
 contents: {
 a!textField(
 value: fv!item.parentText1,
 saveInto: fv!item.parentText1
 ),
 
 a!multipleDropdownField(
 value: property(fv!item.nestedElement1, "int1", {}),
 saveInto: {
 a!save(
 fv!item.nestedElement1,
 a!forEach(
 save!value,
 {
 int1: fv!item,
 text1: "active"
 }
 )
 )
 },
 choiceValues: {1, 2, 3},
 choiceLabels: {1, 2, 3}
 )
 }
 )
 ),
 addRowLink: a!dynamicLink(
 label: "Add",
 saveInto: a!save(
 ri!parentCdt,
 append(
 ri!parentCdt,
 {
 parentText1: "",
 nestedElement1: {}
 }
 )
 )
 )
 )
 },
 
 buttons: a!buttonLayout(
 primaryButtons: {
 a!buttonWidget(
 label: "Submit",
 submit: true()
 )
 }
 )
)

Mike Schmitt · Answer

You would need to populate it in-process prior to your user input task. Though I don't think it should really be necessary to have a "default row" - just validate that the users add at least one.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

If you're in Appian 22.2 already, you could try using the "Sync Records" smart service node to force syncing of the child element. Otherwise I'm unsure - my assumption so far was that the Write to DSE Node caused syncing to happen, but I'm unsure how nested CDTs are handled there.

RuleInput, multidropdown

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