CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi,

There was a post in 2012 suggesting use of the buildhook and javascript for validation. Could someone confirm whether this is possible, please? And is there an alternative to this which would not require 'hacking' the core? If not, is there appetite for doing this in the UI, if I haven't overlooked it?

Thanks!
Simon


Use case:
A care provider is using CiviCase to document the case history of a client. They have 1-2-1 therapy with their clients on a regular basis, amongst other intervention methods like training and group meetings. The organisation wishes to report on the time they spend on each type of intervention across a large sample of their clients, and through inferential statistics attempt to find evidence suggesting that more of a given type of intervention achieves stronger results. Other potential confounding factors aside, they will initially export and take into account data on:

• the total number of each intervention (CiviCase activity) per client
• the total/average time spent on each of those activities, through the duration field (in minutes); the intervention duration varies

If the duration field cannot be flagged as a required field, and staff accidentally forget to complete it, the statistics would be skewed.

Here's the client-side validation approach which I tested. Seems pretty good ...

1. Define a Custom Templates path for the site (if you haven't already).
Administer > System Settings > Directories

2. Create a new file called Activity.extra.tpl a put this code in it:
{include file="CRM/Form/validate.tpl"}
{literal}
<script type="text/javascript">
cj( function( ) {
  cj('#duration').addClass('required digits');
});
</script>
{/literal}

3. Place the file under your custom templates directory in CRM/Activity/Form/Activity folder (replicates the location of the core activity form template - but in your custom templates tree).

Users will now get a friendly validation error if they either leave duration blank OR enter something other than digits. If you'd rather allow them to enter any number (e.g. 20.5) then change 'digits' to 'number'.

Screenshots show the behavior when user leaves field blank or enters invalid data.

Pretty sure you could add that. You'd need additional jQuery logic which controls whether the "required" class is added or not based on the selected value of the Activity Type dropdown.

Cheers Dave.

Petednz, good shout. This org is editing existing activities inside of a case (created by a timeline), and referring to other data elsewhere in the case record, so a webform wouldn't quite work out, but they are using them for other things (internal referral processing, etc).

For others finding this thread, Pete's suggestion is definitely possible

Thanks guys!