Hi,



Orders

Id

OrderDate

ItemId

OrderStatusTypeId



OrderStatusTypes

Id

Name



Can someone explain a decent way to handle setting a default value for a field that contains the ID of a value in a lookup table?



One way I was considering was in the SetDefaultValues() event handler, creating a temporary LookupBO and using that to get the value based on the name of the value I want as the default.



Or would it be better to do an "this.ExecuteScalar(...)" to get the value I need?



Thank You

Govinda

Hi Govinda,

I don't fully understand your question, but if you are creating an Order and want to update the OrderStatusTypeID you can use a combobox to allow the user to select the Status, or if you know that the status for new orders will be 1 or 2 simply use the Orders business object SetDefaultValues to assign the default value.

Edhy Rijo

Thanks for the reply Edhy.



I guess I'm trying to find a way not to hard-code IDs. But I think that's what I should do anyway rather than worry about IDs changing down the line (ie Deployment).

If you don't know the description of the StatusID, then don't assign any as a default, simply mark that field as a Required field in the BO, and use the combobox to allow user to select whatever ID they want to use.

If this feature is a most, later on, you can have a Setup Option form which will allow the end user to select Default Values for some fields and then you can use those values in the Setup Option BO as default for your regular BOs.

Edhy Rijo

I totally agree with Edhy. I'll add that if you decide to not set a default, I'd return/set an alternate value on NULL (likely zero, as this will work well with the required values check). Then when you get to the UI, you'll likely use a combo and the TopMostValue is your friend. You set it up with a space (or some text indicating they need to choose value) and zero (the alternate value on null) and when the user opens the form, they'll see that the value isn't set.

I do know what the default values name should be, but I want to get the value OrderStatusType.Id from the database rather than hardcoding it.



So I was going to do something like this...