Form Improvement: Duplicate Check

Ideas & Features
2

Hey @ccollins I ran into this exact problem the other day and was able to write an automation using info from @Chr1sG 's post and this post from @Matt_Blais .

Automation:

  1. The automation triggers for new entities created from a form. I put a hidden checkbox on all of my forms to indicate this.
  2. The script checks a single text field (‘SKU’ in my case) to see if there is more than one copy in the DB.
  3. If there is, it deletes the new entry and throws an error.

There are a few downsides to this approach.

  • Creating → Checking → Deleting is probably not the most efficient way to stop duplicates. I would be better to stop entity creation altogether
  • The only way to indicate to the user that a duplicate has been created is to throw an error. Unfortunately if an automation errors more than 3 times it is disabled and has to be manually restarted from the automation page. This feature could help the situation.

Here is a screenshot and the code snippet:

Deduplication Automation
Deduplication Automation1838×1512 227 KB 

const fibery = context.getService('fibery')
const entity_type = args.currentEntities[0].type
// Replace 'Data' with the appropriate space name
const SPACE_NAME = 'Data'

for (const entity of args.currentEntities) {
    // Replace 'findMaterials' with the appropriate GraphQL command for the DB
    // Replace 'sku:' and '.sku" with the appropriate text field name 
    const query = `{findMaterials(sku:{contains: "${entity.sku}"}){id}}`
    const result = await fibery.graphql(SPACE_NAME, query)
    const ids = result.data.findMaterials.length
    if (ids > 1) {
        await fibery.deleteEntity(entity.type, entity.id);
        throw new Error("This material already exist, please check database")
    }
}
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