So, I’d like to preface this post with two points:
1.) I believe there’s a very similar post already floating around out there but couldn’t find it so no hard feelings if you merge mine away
2.) This probably relates to some improvements that were recently made to lookup handling in Report Builder which were, on the whole, popular with others. My issue is not with the behavior in Report Builder, though there are some specific issues on that side of the house that I’m omitting because people seem to like how this behaves today.
When working in Rules, I sometimes find myself needing to load a top-level ID to a field which is ALSO a lookup. In Bionic rules, I was able to do this pretty simply with a single fetch task and a custom field in the actions to update the affected records with the new ID value.
In Horizon rules, however, lookup fields open a search box - even while mapping a custom field. This means that I can no longer just paste the desired ID to the custom field mapping.
The workaround is to create a transform and use a Case statement to force the new value into a standalone string field, and map that instead. The criteria on the Case are a bit silly because I’ve already fetched my affected records, and it adds an extra step to the process.
I’m not sure if I’m in the majority on this, but I’d appreciate being able to handkey in the exact string value for these - at least when mapping a custom field. Bonus points if we could get the best of both worlds and surface a toggle to allow admins to pick between “Search” or “Use Specific”.