160. Record Profiler field does not update when dependency field is changed

The following applies to Record Profiler solutions where a table is used to lookup title format and default field values for the profiling of records into a records management system.

Problem:

The Title field (or similar) that is automatically generated using an SQL query lookup of the format from the profile table is not updated when the user changes a related field in the respective format.

Reason:

When document profiling is started, the KFI builds a one off dependency graph of fields to determine what fields should be dynamically updated when related fields are changed. This is done by searching all field settings for placeholder references (e.g. <<F1>>) to other fields. However when using record profiler the placeholders are typically not stored in the field settings, they are instead stored in an external table and thus are not known until much later in processing when a lookup has been performed.

Resolution:

We can give KFI hints of the relationships by inserting placeholders of fields known to be included in the title formats as a comment inside of the generated field’s SQL query. For example, the second line in the below SQL query will ensure KFI detects that fields 2, 3, and 4 are also related to the Title field.

SELECT [Title] FROM [Profiler] WHERE [Category] = '<<F1>>';
-- Related fields: <<F2>>,<<F3>>,<<F4>>