Scenario Overview

Using the North52 business rules engine for Microsoft Dynamics 365 we show how to enforce validation rules whenever an Account is being updated or created.

Validation Rules

Rule #	Description
1	Whenever the Account is a Preferred Customer or whenever the Credit Limit is greater than 100,000, display a validation message if the Address fields have not been filled in.

This can be done easily by making a Decision Table that triggers when an Account is created or when an Account's Address fields are changed. 

North52 Decision Suite Solution

The North52 Decision Suite solution works like this:

• A Formula of type Validation for the Account entity
  • Each time an Account is created, the Formula triggers
  • Also, whenever any of  following address fields are changed the formula triggers: 
    • Category, Credit Limit,Street 1, Street 2, Street 3, State/Province, Zip/Postal Code, City
  • The Formula will check to see if the Account is a Preferred Customer or if the Credit Limit is greater than 100,000
    • If either of those conditions are met, the Decision Table will then check if the Address fields contain data
      • A error message will show and display all Address fields that do not contain data

North52 Decision Suite Steps

• Create a new Formula, setting the following values in the Formula Guide
  • Source Entity set to Account
  • Set Formula Type to Validation
    • Note that choosing this type will change Deployment Settings > Pipeline Stage to Pre-Validation (Synchronous)
  • Select the Decision Table editor
• Change the Name of the formula to Account Conditional Address Validation
• Expand the Source & Target section
  • Control-click to multi-select the following fields: Category, Credit Limit, Address 1: Street 1, Address 1: Street 2, Address 1: Street 3, Address 1: City, Address 1: State/Province,  Address 1: ZIP/Postal Code
• Click Save
• Highlight columns B to I 
• Right-click and select Insert > Insert Condition
  • This will insert Condition columns for all the selected columns
    • Note if you have a North52 BPA version less than 562 you will need to manually add the columns one by one
• Select column I, then right-click and select Insert > Insert SetVarConcat Calculation (*-)
• Replace SetName with ValidationFields
• Right-click the sheet Hit Policy > Exit this Decision Table on First Match and uncheck the checkbox
• Select column J, then right-click and select Insert > Insert Inline Calculation (==)
• Replace SetName with FinalValidationMessage
• Right click and select Operations > Toggle Advanced Mode
• In cell I3, paste ContainsData(GetVar('ValidationFields'))
• Select cell A2
  • Go to the Source tab and and expand Source
  • Find and click Category (Value)
• Select cell A4 
  • Go back to the Source tab and expand Category (Value)
  • Click on Preferred Customer
• Select cell B2
  • Go back to the Source tab, find and click Credit Limit
• In cell B4 and type >100000
• Select columns A and B
  • Right-click and select Set Condition Column Options > Condition-Or
• Select cell C2
  • Go to the Source tab and click on Address 1 : Street 1
• Select cell C4 and then go to the Functions tab
  • Search for doesnot and ctrl+click the DoesNotContainData function
• Select cell I4 and type 'Required Field: Address1 Street1' including the quotes
• Repeat this for each address field in columns D, E , F, G and H like the image above
• In cell I10, paste TRUE
• Click Save

The Decision table will now check

• If Category is set to Preferred Customer OR if the Credit Limit is greater than 100000 
• If any of Address fields are empty

Whenever these conditions are met, the FinalValidationMessage is updated with the relevant message and an error message will be shown to the user.