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DDean Dynamic Form Population and Field Attributes
Despite the fact that we have access to the Enterprise WSDL, I've decided to use the Partner WSDL for a new project of mine.
Basically what I've built is a dynamic form that uses an Object's Fields to populate a form on our webserver with the appropriate controls at runtime, collects the values and submits them back into SF. I've got everything worked out the way I like: field type interpretation, field creation, list population, and even got field validation working... except that I can't think of a good way for my Salesforce Admins to indicate that a field should be required.
Take our Survey object, for example. If they add a custom field to Surveys and make it required, then when a salesperson creates a new Survey object INSIDE Salesforce, they must supply a value. I'm just looking for a way to indicate that it needs to be validated at the end-user. Right now I'm using the Field's name to determine if the Field should be required by prepending "SFF_" to indicate the Field should be on the form, and not just in SF, and "VAL_" to indicate that the Field should be required.
I'd really like to use each Field's Description property for keywords, like "Required" and "ShowOnForm" instead. I don't like the idea of forcing a naming convention on custom Fields, and would much prefer they can modify the field more easily using it's description. Unfortunately, I can't figure out where Object's Field's Descriptions are stored. Apparently not as a property of the Field object itself?
Does anyone know where I can find the Description property of a custom Field?
THANKS IN ADVANCE!
PS - You're probably thinking that there are other ways to do some of this, but I've built this little framework in such a way where I can use either Salesforce or a SQL database to describe these dynamic forms and collect data, so there's a little bit of abstraction going on that might seem a little unnecessary on the surface.
Basically what I've built is a dynamic form that uses an Object's Fields to populate a form on our webserver with the appropriate controls at runtime, collects the values and submits them back into SF. I've got everything worked out the way I like: field type interpretation, field creation, list population, and even got field validation working... except that I can't think of a good way for my Salesforce Admins to indicate that a field should be required.
Take our Survey object, for example. If they add a custom field to Surveys and make it required, then when a salesperson creates a new Survey object INSIDE Salesforce, they must supply a value. I'm just looking for a way to indicate that it needs to be validated at the end-user. Right now I'm using the Field's name to determine if the Field should be required by prepending "SFF_" to indicate the Field should be on the form, and not just in SF, and "VAL_" to indicate that the Field should be required.
I'd really like to use each Field's Description property for keywords, like "Required" and "ShowOnForm" instead. I don't like the idea of forcing a naming convention on custom Fields, and would much prefer they can modify the field more easily using it's description. Unfortunately, I can't figure out where Object's Field's Descriptions are stored. Apparently not as a property of the Field object itself?
Does anyone know where I can find the Description property of a custom Field?
THANKS IN ADVANCE!
PS - You're probably thinking that there are other ways to do some of this, but I've built this little framework in such a way where I can use either Salesforce or a SQL database to describe these dynamic forms and collect data, so there's a little bit of abstraction going on that might seem a little unnecessary on the surface.