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Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath

Comparing previous and current values for custom MDF in Successfactors

Introduction

In this Blog, I am going to demonstrate a use case where we need to create rules based on field changes of an MDF object. Reason for the blog: Most of the customers/partners are unaware of this functionality and find challenges to implement use cases in MDF which requires field comparison for custom applications. This is similar to the Model concept for HRIS Objects like Job information, Compensation Information where we have the capability to check previous value and current values of fields and decide on next steps in rules.

Typical examples include:

  • Based on field value changes, you would want to trigger a specific workflow
  • You would like to set specific event reasons in Position Object based on different combination of field changes
  • You would like to raise validation messages based on field changes

Initially, this concept was delivered for Position but now this can be used for a custom MDF as well. The concept used by MDF is a parameter called “OriginalValues”. The OriginalValues is a replica of the base object (any custom MDF or Position object). The OriginalValues parameterized object stores the previous values for all attributes of the base object.

I will demonstrate this by using a simple custom MDF. I have a custom MDF named “Employee Stock”. An employee can be granted a stock value. But if an admin/user tries to change the value or rather give a jump of more than 200, then a validation error needs to be thrown. For example, lets say we have granted 100 shares to an employee. Now if we try to change that value to greater than 300, it should throw an error. If the difference is less than 200 it should allow us to save

 

 

 

Configuration of Custom MDF & Rules

The custom MDF has three fields:

External code: User

Effective Start Date: Date

Stock Value: Decimal

Create a rule as below. Add an additional parameter named “OriginalValues” with base object as Employee Stock

LATEST UPDATE

You don’t need to add these parameters manually now. Create the rule using the MDF rule scenario (not “Basic”)! With that, the necessary parameters (e.g. previous value, original value…) are correctly added to the rule and you do not need to take care of the correct spelling or code. This prevents issues

Attach the rule at the onSave hook of Employee Stock Object Definition

Working

An Employee is granted Stock value of 100 initially as shown below

Scenario 1:

Manager/Admin tries to provide a jump of 250 by changing the value to 350

We see an error message thrown. This basically compares 100 with 350 and sees that jump is more than 200 as per rule config. Hence the message

Scenario 2:

Manager/Admin tries to provide a jump of 150 by changing the value to 250

We see that data is saved successfully as the difference between previous (original) value and the current value is less than 200 as per our rule

 

The above is a simple example to demonstrate this feature for custom MDF. You can extend this to any specific use case which involves field comparison across MDFs

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      16 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Rajesh Kumar
      Rajesh Kumar

      Hi Neelesh!

      Excellent Article !!!It adds awareness about a new dimension to the functionality of MDF objects.just a clarification the functionality works even if MDF Version History is selected as "NO" !!!

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Rajesh for the feedback :). Yes it works even if History is "No"

      Author's profile photo Neelam Dhaka
      Neelam Dhaka

      Hi Neelesh,

      Thank you for sharing this information. Its very helpful, solves lot of issues.

      Thanks once again.

       

       

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Neelam 🙂

      Author's profile photo SHYAM VALAKATTE
      SHYAM VALAKATTE

      Hi Neelesh,

      Thanks for the documentation. I have used your suggestion to validate the old value. My business rule is giving the below error. What should be the 'code' field used in Parameter section of rule definition?

      Rule "XXXXXXXXX" execution failed with error "Rule execution context is null, either because OriginalValue is not a valid object or OriginalValue has no corresponding instance"

      Regards

      Shyam

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Shyam,

      The code field for rule parameter is "OriginalValues" .

      Thanks

      Neelesh

      Author's profile photo Anish Kumar Sankaran
      Anish Kumar Sankaran

      Can you please help with the same logic using Canvas Report to compare previous and current value?

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Unfortunately, I am not a reporting expert..So I cannot comment on it

      Author's profile photo Renan Vasconcelos Girard
      Renan Vasconcelos Girard

      Hi Neelesh Kamath Thanks for share it!

      Does it work for child data? I need to validate if and what child row was modified. Is it also possible to compare the entire child object or must be compared field by field?

       

      Thanks

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks . Yes ideally it should work for all MDF objects. For child , you need to create a rule with base object as child and attach it to child object definition. I have not personally tried it on Child objects. But you can try it

      Author's profile photo Renan Vasconcelos Girard
      Renan Vasconcelos Girard

      Hi, thanks for you reply.

      It shows an error in the execution log: The expression 'OriginalValues' could not be evaluated completely as the property 'OriginalValues' is found to be NULL at 'OriginalValues'. Evaluation result is NULL.

      It says that is null but it has 3 rows as child object.

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      You can refer to the link to create the new MDF based rule scenario validation https://help.sap.com/viewer/e4a4ce68589841709a8202928c23803a/2105/en-US/614e2d0010eb483bbbfd951df009196d.html

      If it does not work for child, kindly report an incident to SAP..

      BTW I was able to do some alternative using rule based on parent MDF and then checking child MDF records..you might have to select the where clause corretly..This works for me

      Author's profile photo Kshetrali Mirage
      Kshetrali Mirage

      hello Neelesh,

       

      How will it work for other data types than decimal, like for field with string/picklist/ date

       

      Thanks In advance

      Author's profile photo Pradeep Ragunathan
      Pradeep Ragunathan

      This is very helpful. Thanks

      Author's profile photo Sylvia Strangfeld
      Sylvia Strangfeld

      Very helpful blog, Neelesh!

      Just to increase the awareness (it was already mentioned in a discussion between Neelesh Kamath Shyam Valakatte, and Renan Vasconcelos Girard , but might be overlooked:

      Create the rule using the MDF rule scenario (not "Basic")! With that, the necessary parameters (e.g. previous value, original value...) are correctly added to the rule and you do not need to take care of the correct spelling or code. This prevents issues. For such a rule, the purpose would be "evaluate", as this can be assigned onSave as well as raise message is allowed.

      Hope this helps!

      BR, Sylvia

      Author's profile photo Neelesh Kamath
      Neelesh Kamath
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks, Sylvia

      You are right.Now we have those parameters instilled in the MDF rule scenario

      My blog was created way back in the past in 2018 when these rule scenarios did not exist and this was one of the ways to do the comparison and you had to add these parameters manually

      I will also update my blog at the end that these parameters exist directly in the rule scenario now

      Best Regards

      Neelesh