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jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarri
jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarri
Helper ⭐️⭐️
August 17, 2018

Add formula to handle null values in string field in rules engine

  • August 17, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 26 views
It will be an advantage if we can add NULL handling string functions in rules engine to handle null values.

Sample use case is whenever history tracking is enabled on user defined custom fields on Gainsight objects, Old Value which is a text field is populating NULLs into history fields.

When a customer wants to compare this Old Value with New Value and take actions like create a CTA for the comparison result set there is no current feasibility to do a comparison of Old Value field with New value field in rules engine.

If we can have a function like NVL() it will be more beneficial to support such genuine use cases.

      4 replies

      pavan_bandi
      Gainsight Employee ⭐️
      pavan_bandi
      Gainsight Employee ⭐️
      August 17, 2018
      If the objective is to compare Old Value with New Value, you can use Transformation Task, where we can do Field to Field comparison. Additionally you can add a null value check as well.

      Attaching screenshot for reference.



      jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarri
      jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarriAuthor
      Helper ⭐️⭐️
      August 17, 2018
      Hi Pavan,

      Thanks for looking into this request.
      Here both Old Value and new value are of text data type and actual comparison is failing as we compare NULL string to an actual string field.

      Say for example if we want to see which field comprises greater value, I guess this workaround wouldn't work as NULL cannot be compared against actual value.

      Regards,
      Jagadeesh

      jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarri
      jagadeesh_kumar_paidimarriAuthor
      Helper ⭐️⭐️
      August 17, 2018
      Another use case is, if in case the Old value which is a string datatype is tracking history changes for a numeric data type (say users) I am not sure if this comparison would actually work where Old value is null and new value is a number for this case.
      phani_kumar
      phani_kumar
      Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️
      April 7, 2020

      Hi Jagadeesh.

      I think to achieve your task first you filter out the records where the Old Value Not Equals Null

      and in the other transform as Pavan said we can do the Field comparison. 

       

      But again, I do agree with your suggestion that provides the NVL() function in the rules engine will help a lot.

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