Does anybody have fairly solid methods of working around Creatio's limitation of not being able to distinguish between zeroes and missing values for number fields? This often comes up in requirements, and I haven't found a workaround that works so well that I always use it.
Some methods we've tried/considered:
Using Text fields instead of number fields
Obvious disadvantage of not having numeric protections/validations, both in the page layer & the backend & database side
Values can't be aggregated into KPI widgets/graphs, unless you have some process to copy the number text into a hidden number field...
Having a Boolean field for every number field to indicate if it should be null or zero
Cumbersome to implement on objects with lots of number fields
Field still displays as a zero value unless you add in custom code everywhere it appears
BPs or Event Listener code needed to ensure these 2 fields agree, plus logic in the page/integrations needed to set the flags and make the field show nothing when the flag is set
Any other workarounds people are using that are effective? Hopefully Creatio will add this capability at some point as it is crucial for having valid data, but it feels like it would require a fairly big change to the platform, so I don't expect we'll get it very soon!
The task is still in progress and the only workaround that currently exists is using the text column instead of a number. In case this number should be processed it can be done using type casting in formulas (or script tasks) of business processes.
I've also added your voice to prioritize the problem for our R&D team. Hope this will be implemented soon.
We are also experiencing this issue when searching by dates. For example, 4/5/1967 will generate a hit, but not 04/05/1967. Interested in being added to any prioritization tickets on this.
Please create a separate question in the community with a description of how exactly the search is performed and which datatype your current column that stores the date has.
The logic of making the field empty using data import is not developed yes and as a result, there is no way to make the field empty using the import tool.
We've registered it in our R&D team backlog for consideration and implementation in future application releases.
The logic of making the field empty using data import is not developed yes and as a result, there is no way to make the field empty using the import tool.
We've registered it in our R&D team backlog for consideration and implementation in future application releases.
