A Validation Rule is a specific type of Business Rule that is used to perform validation of information captured on PPO by users. It therefore prevents the update from taking place based on the specified conditions.
This can best be explained by looking at some examples:
- Only users belonging to the Project Office Administrators user group may change the phase of a project.
- A Project Manager is required when a project is in the Execution phase.
- A project must start off in the Proposed status.
- A project can only be made Inactive when it is in the Benefit Realisation stage unless it is done by a user belonging to the Administrators user group.
If an exception occurs when a record is submitted, the user is redirected back to the edit page and an appropriate validation message is displayed. The user then has the opportunity to correct the problem and try to submit the item again.
Adding a new validation rule
Under the Administration Menu select Business Rules which will take you the Business Rule List page and then click on the Add button. On the form that is displayed, complete the information as described below:
Description: Provide an applicable description for the validation rule. Try and stick to a certain naming convention that works for you, for example add the “Entity Type” first and then the event trigger, so it’s easy for your to identify the validation rule that has been setup, for example Comment – Cannot edit title, which is the validation rule that has been setup for preventing users from changing the comment titles.
The entity this rule relates to: Select the applicable entity from the drop-down list.
The events that should trigger the rule: Select whether the rule should be triggered on add, update, add and update, or on delete.
Is the rule active?: The Active checkbox is by default selected when a new business rule is added.
Action: Specify the "Prevent Update" action.
Sort Order: You are able to specify the order in which the validation rules need to happen.
Message to display: Used to capture the “error” message that the user will see when they try and update the field, which is protected by the validation rule that has been setup.
Conditions and Exceptions: This section allows you to specify which conditions will cause the validation rule to prevent the update and show the specified error message. The conditions can be based on whether certain fields have changed, if the old values match a filter or whether the new values supplied match a filter. Exceptions are similar, except that you can also specify an exception for certain user groups e.g. the rule does not apply to PPO Administrators.
For more information related to business rules follow this article.