return only values of picklistEntries where controllingField value is something particular

[Jack_Sanford]

Is there some way in the skuid Field API to see only certain picklistEntries from a field based on a given value from the controllingField

I want to create a number of rows based on the number of picklistEntries in a given picklist field. I’ve got it working, but my picklist has controlling field, and I only want to return picklistEntries for a certain given value of my controlling field. Is this possible somehow?

Here’s my snippet which creates rows for every picklist entry:

var params = arguments[0], <br />$ = skuid&#46;$,<br />expenses = skuid&#46;model&#46;getModel('Expenses'),<br />description = expenses&#46;getField('Description__c'),<br />entries = description&#46;picklistEntries;<br /><br />$&#46;each(entries, function(){<br /><br />var entryValue = this;<br /> <br />var newExpense = expenses&#46;createRow({ <br />additionalConditions: [<br />{field: 'Description__c', value: entryValue, operator: '='}<br />]});<br />});

This works great, but the Description field is a dependent picklist. The controlling field has two values, Income and Expense. I only want the entries where the controlling value is Expense.

I’ve tried doing something like:

var type = description&#46;controllingField;<br />$&#46;each(entries, function(){<br />if (type&#46;value === 'Expense'){ <br />var entryValue = this;<br />var newExpense = expenses&#46;createRow({ <br />additionalConditions: [<br />{field: 'Description__c', value: entryValue, operator: '='}<br />]});<br />}<br />});

But that’s not working. It’s not really able to look up from a single picklistEntry to what its controlling field value is (since there could be more than one). Should probably use CONTAINS there. Or, could I structure it so i have nested each functions, and be able to look down at all the picklist entries from a given controlling field value?

I also tried this and it didn’t work, says can’t find the value of undefined:

$&#46;each(entries, function(){<br />if (this&#46;controllingField&#46;value === 'Expense'){<br /> var newExpense = expenses&#46;createRow({<br />additionalConditions: [<br />{field: 'Description__c', value: entryValue, operator: '='}<br />]});<br />}<br />});

I also tried using an aggregate model for my IncomeExpense object, with a condition where Type = Expense, and grouping by Description__c, but I kept getting errors that it couldn’t count the length of the model when using rows = aggmodel.rows then each on rows. 

[Jack_Sanford]

Some interesting stuff. Each picklistEntries object has a variable called validFor, and this corresponds to the field dependency. In the screenshot below, object 5 description value is only valid for type value of Income, object 7 is only valid for type of Expense, and object 6 is valid for both.

Problem is, the value of validFor is some unique ID, I guess we found Salesforce’s ID for a field dependency junction object, in this case gAAA, wAAA, and QAAA

So the following snippet works perfect:

var params = arguments[0],    $ = skuid.$,
    models = skuid.model.map(),
    expenses = skuid.model.getModel('Expenses'),
    description = expenses.getField('Description\_\_c'),
    entries = description.picklistEntries;
$.each(entries, function(){
var isExpense = this.validFor !== 'gAAA' ? true : false;
if (isExpense){ 
    var entryValue = this.value;
var newExpense = expenses.createRow({
additionalConditions: [
// 
{field: 'Description\_\_c', value: entryValue, operator: '='}
]
});
}
// var conditionId = conditions.getFieldValue(conditionRow, 'Id');
});

Next question is, how do I query for the value of validFor without using console??

[Ben_Hubbard]

Hi Jack,

We don’t have any supported, documented APIs for figuring out picklist dependencies. However, there is a blog post that goes through some of this stuff and explains what the cryptic value of “validFor” means. Here it is…

https://iwritecrappycode.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/dependent-picklists-in-salesforce-without-metadata…

[Jack_Sanford]

Thanks Ben. I think the answer might be somewhere in that post.

I was hoping that maybe gAAA decoded from base64 would equal ‘Expense’ but no dice. Or maybe there would be a matching validFor on the controlling field picklist entry, but no dice. 

Works pretty well right now, and just a matter of doing a console log of the field or of the picklist entries to get the validFor value if I wanted to repeat this somewhere else.

console.log (description);<br>console.log (entries);

[Ben_Hubbard]

Your solution is a bit brittle, if you make any changes to your dependencies grid, that value for valid for will change. Since a particular picklist value can be valid for multiple controlling values, “gAAA” does not map directly to “Expense”.

The part of the blog post that is most relevant is this function.

// sub function to do the validFor test<br>

function isDependentValue(index, validFor) { var base64 = new sforce.Base64Binary(""); var decoded = base64.decode(validFor); var bits = decoded.charCodeAt(index>>3); return ((bits & (0x80 >> (index%8))) != 0); }

It tells you if a picklist value is valid for a particular index of your controlling field. You can try it on a few values.

isDependentValue(0,‘gAAA’); // results in true
isDependentValue(1,‘gAAA’); // results in false
isDependentValue(2,‘gAAA’); // results in false
isDependentValue(3,‘gAAA’); // results in false

isDependentValue(0,‘QAAA’); // results in false
isDependentValue(1,‘QAAA’); // results in true
isDependentValue(2,‘QAAA’); // results in false
isDependentValue(3,‘QAAA’); // results in false