Table of Contents

Validation Business Mapping

This type of map will permit you to add different types of validations on the fields of a module.

The accepted format is 

 <map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>SalesOrder</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>subject</fieldname>   {field to validate}
      <validations>  {if more than one is present they must all pass to accept the value}
        <validation>
          <rule>{rule_name}</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>{values depend on the rule}</restriction>
          </restrictions>
          <message>This is my custom msg for field: {field}</message>  {optional}
        </validation>
        .....
      </validations>
    </field>
    <field>
     .....
    </field>
  </fields>

where {rule_name} can be:

The parameters directive permits us to send values to our custom validation method with a structure like this: 

<parameters>
<parameter>
<name>name of variable</name>
<value>value of variable</value>
</parameter>
</parameters>

these parameters will be sent as a name indexed array to the function

Validation Message

All of the rules above accept an optional directive named message where you can set the error message you want the user to see when an error on that field happens. If this is not established, a standard error message will be returned. Inside this custom message you can use the curly brace field tag to indicate where you want the field name to appear: 

  <message>This is my custom msg for field: {field}</message>

Besides this option, which covers almost all the use cases, we have run into an edge case where we needed the message to be dynamically set. The problem with this is that the way the valitron library works we need to give it all the rules and messages before we start but in this case, we didn't know the message until the validation was launched. So we added support for defining the message before validating the rule for custom functions.

To retrieve the message to be used, the validation map will look for a function with the same name as custom function concatenated with the string “GetMessage”. So, if we have a custom rule named “validateFlowStep” and we define another function named “validateFlowStepGetMessage”, then the validation map will execute this second function giving it the same parameters as the validation function plus the current validation message. This way your custom validation function can determine which message to return. This is almost like launching the validation twice, so it comes at a price.

You can see an example of this in the BPM Process Flow Perspective. Look in the Process Flow module for the validateFlowStep script.

Activating the validation maps

The trigger for these maps is:

If more than one record is found, they will ALL be applied.

So, as with most business maps, what activates the map is the name, but as a difference with other maps this type of map can have more than one and they will all be merged and applied.

This type of map also supports the Global Variable configuration as all the other business maps. In this case, the global variables will all be obtained and evaluated, so you can have more than one global variable and they will ALL be added to the Business Maps that are found by name.

The idea is that we can have global validations for all users using the business map trigger name (ending with “_Validations”) and then define other business maps with any other name and activate these per-user or role using the global variable “BusinessMappings_Validations”. This global variable MUST have the correct module selected (only one).

Accessing other fields in the form

You can use the values of other fields on the form by putting the field name inside two curly brackets. For example, the next map will validate that the field dtstart is before the value in field dtend. 

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>cbCalendar</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>dtend</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>dateAfter</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>{{dtstart}}</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

There is an important limitation when using the values of other fields. These values will only be available when editing the whole record. If the user is doing inline individual field edit on the detail view, the value of the other fields will not be available. To overcome this limitation, you need to create a custom validation rule and access the values you need from the database.

Other information available during validation

In order to enhance the set of possible validations that can be done, the validation system automatically adds some values that you can use freely.

Current values

When editing a record it is possible to want to compare the value introduced by the user with the value that is currently saved in that same field or some other field with which it may have some dependency. In this case you can access these values prefixing the string “current_” to the variable name. For example, let's suppose that we are editing an Account, the user has changed the Industry picklist value and we want to check what the currently saved value is before accepting the change. Let's imagine a rule that says:

Any account who's industry is set to Banking, cannot be changed

In this case, we can easily access the value that the user has selected by putting the industry field and to access the value saved in the application we would use: current_industry, something like this: 

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>current_industry</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>notIn</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>Banking</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

Product lines

In inventory modules, the system will load all the information of the lines into the pdoInformation array which will look something like this: 

pdoInformation => array(
 array(
  'crmid' = {first line product/service ID},
  'qty' = {first line quantity (units)},
  'name' = {first line product/service name},
  'type' = {first line product/service type},
 ),
 ... all product/service lines ..

Accessing via web service

Validation maps have their own web service end-point: ValidateInformation

Also, we have CreateWithValidation, UpdateWithValidation, and ReviseWithValidation

Some other examples

Another example of how to limit the accepted values in a picklist, even making it mandatory if needed. 

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>cbCalendar</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>activitytype</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>notIn</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>Call</restriction>
          <restriction>Meeting</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

This next example contains a REGEX expression that will not accept any alphabetical letter in the accountname field and there must be at least one character. Important things to notice in the REGEX expression are:

  1. you must set the initial and end of line markers as the value is compared as a complete string
  2. you may or may not need the CDATA depending on the regex (the one below does not need CDATA)
  3. modifiers are not supported in the expression
<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>accountname</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>regex</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction><![CDATA[/^[^A-Za-z]+$/]]></restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

Forum Post with a very advanced example of a custom validation

https://discussions.corebos.org/showthread.php?tid=1017&pid=5472#pid5472

Thanks Luke

Custom Validations

coreBOS has some custom validations that are not loaded by default but can be used if necessary:

For example, a validation for a valid CIF on account siccode field looks like this: 

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>siccode</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>custom</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>include/validation/validatorESIDNumber.php</restriction>
          <restriction>isValidCIF</restriction>
          <restriction>isValidCIF</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

Test Validation Business Mapping

These are the two validation maps I used while developing the integration of the mapping in the save process: 

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>accountname</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>required</rule>
        </validation>
        <validation>
          <rule>contains</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>mex</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
    <field>
      <fieldname>industry</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>notDuplicate</rule>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>
<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>email1</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>custom</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>modules/cbMap/Validation.php</restriction>
          <restriction>testemail</restriction>
          <restriction>validate_testacccemail</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>

both are set for the Accounts module.

This is the custom validation script: 

function validate_testacccemail($field) {
	global $log;$log->fatal('validation for'.$field);
	return true;
}

Expression Map

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>employees</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>expression</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>AccountsEmployees_ConditionExpression</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>
<map>
  <expression>if employees > 10 then 1 else 0 end</expression>
</map>

Custom Message Test Map

<map>
  <originmodule>
    <originname>Accounts</originname>
  </originmodule>
  <fields>
    <field>
      <fieldname>industry</fieldname>
      <validations>
        <validation>
          <rule>notIn</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>Banking</restriction>
          </restrictions>
          <message>This is my custom msg for field: {field}</message>
        </validation>
        <validation>
          <rule>notIn</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>Energy</restriction>
          </restrictions>
          <message>Energy not supportted for: {field}</message>
        </validation>
        <validation>
          <rule>notIn</rule>
          <restrictions>
          <restriction>Apparel</restriction>
          </restrictions>
        </validation>
      </validations>
    </field>
  </fields>
</map>