Hi everyone,
A little help required. On my “accounts” module I have a custom field named “borough”. I wish to be able to create email “target lists” for “contacts” associated with “accounts” based on the “borough” field.
This means when I search for new contacts to add to my target list the “borough” field will appear in the contact search.
I have tried some methods mentioned in the forum but they do not seem to work with custom fields.
I am new to this forum so if I have posted in the wrong area I apologise.
Many thanks for any help!
Darrel
I have added borough as a relate field “borough_c”. When this shows up it populates with the account name and not the borough. As in the image enclosed on my post all I m looking for is to be able use the borough in the contacts search. I am sure this must be easy and I am missing a trick.
Once again thanks for any help.
So if I am getting this correct. What you require is, lets say there is an account with borough_c = X (borough_c is a simple text field)
Every contact related to this account will also have borough_c = X
When you add contacts to target lists, you want to use X to filter contacts. Am I right?
In this case, your approach needs to be altered slightly. Contacts are already “related” to Accounts so you do not need another relate field, just a simple text field.
What you need to do is, whenever you are saving a Contact, use a logic hook to fetch borough_c from Accounts and put the same value in borough_c of Contacts.
Wrote a small sample code over here https://suitecrm.com/forum/suitecrm-7-0-discussion/12823-workflow-action-to-populate-field#43249
Take a look.
Thanks so much Arsalan, I will try your code over the weekend and let you know how I get on.
Many thanks
Darrel
OK so I have implemented the following.
added the following to the logic_hooks.php file:
$hook_array[‘before_save’][] = Array(
//Processing index. For sorting the array.
1,
//Label. A string value to identify the hook.
'before_save example',
//The PHP file where your class is located.
'custom/modules/Contacts/before_save_class.php',
//The class the method is in.
'before_save_class',
//The method to call.
'before_save_method'
);
Created the before_save_class.php file and added -
if (!defined(‘sugarEntry’) || !sugarEntry) die(‘Not A Valid Entry Point’);
class before_save_class
{
function before_save_method($bean, $event, $arguments)
{
//lets assume the account field in deliveries is account_id_c
//We will use beans to fetch the related account's details
$account = new Account();
$account->retrieve($bean->borough_c);
//Set the values from accounts into deliveries
// $bean is your current record being saved.
// $account is the related account.
$bean->borough_c = $account->borough_c;
//Same stuff in order to set other values
}
}
Now when I save a contact I get the following:
if (!defined(‘sugarEntry’) || !sugarEntry) die(‘Not A Valid Entry Point’); class before_save_class { function before_save_method($bean, $event, $arguments) { //lets assume the account field in deliveries is account_id_c //We will use beans to fetch the related account’s details $account = new Account(); $account->retrieve($bean->borough_c); //Set the values from accounts into deliveries // $bean is your current record being saved. // $account is the related account. $bean->borough_c = $account->borough_c; //Same stuff in order to set other values } }
I have obviously done something incorrectly. Many thanks once again for your help.
I am guessing you forgot to add the PHP tags <?php and ?> in your before_save_class.php file
Also $account->retrieve($bean->borough_c), this needs to be the ID field of the account which is related to contact. If you are using the default field it will be
$account->retrieve($bean->account_id)
I am pretty sure borough_c is not the field which contains the account’s ID. Its just your custom field.
What a muppet! just realised about the tags! thanks
Thanks so much, this works perfectly. Will I have to re-save all my contacts indvidualy or is there a quick way? This obviously only updates when they have been saved again. I have several thousand contacts so it would obviously take a while.Thanks very much.
Logic Hooks work even when you import contacts. So exporting all your contacts and importing/updating them again seems to be a quick option.
Don’t forget to backup your database before importing.
1 Like
@darrelallam
Darrell,
I think that your method improves your situation but it is a little buggy:
-
What happens when you update an account’s burrough?
Possible solution: implement a logic hook for the Accounts module that updates the field also on all the account’s contacts
-
What happens when you import an account or a contact?
With respect to a contact Arsalan has provided an answer, but not for the import of an account.
-
What happens when either account or contact are created in other ways (eg: convert lead, workflow, scheduler, direct database modification, etc…)
Solution: you have to think of all the possible events and have a solution for each
Question:
Isn’t the functionality that let’s you add to a target list the contacts from account found in a search run form the accounts module, sufficient (see picture)?
If you use this functionality, you can search all your accounts in a given Burrough and then add all the contatcs related to these accounts to a target list.
Additionally you could run a search within your contacts and create one or more other target lists (eg: a suppression list) and use them accordingly
Other possible solutions:
Reports: you could create a report that finds all the contacts according to your criteria (including their account’s burrough) and then add the result to a target list: in this way you would avoid duplication and redundancy of data (which leads to the errors I highlighted above)
Workflow: although I am not 100% sure, I think that you could create a workflow that does what you want to achieve.
Custom scheduler: you could create a custom scheduler that does it too
Note that both the scheduler and the workflow solution will have moments in which the records are not up-to-date since both schedulers and workflow run at specific intervals and between those intervals data may be added, deleted or modified.
I would first try the add contacts to target list from the accounts module search (although this allows you to search only for accounts), and, as a second option, reports.
Hope this helps (and not confuses!)
2 Likes
Hi amariussi
Question:
Isn’t the functionality that let’s you add to a target list the contacts from account found in a search run form the accounts module, sufficient (see picture)?
The above feature I had completely missed and should be able to do exactly what I want. Many thanks Darrel
Hello,
I am trying to do the same thing, in my case I have 2 dropdown fields to populate from account to contact.
In account: account_type & industry
In contact: account_type_c & industry_c
But it doesn’t work, the fields are not populated. Any help!
I made it like this:
In custom\modules\Accounts\logic_hooks.php
$hook_array[‘before_save’][] = Array(1, ‘before_save_accounts’, ‘custom/modules/Contacts/before_save_class.php’, ‘before_save_class’, ‘before_save_method’);
In \custom\modules\Contacts\before_save_class.php
<?php
if (!defined('sugarEntry') || !sugarEntry) die('Not A Valid Entry Point');
class before_save_class
{
function before_save_method($bean, $event, $arguments)
{
//lets assume the account field in deliveries is account_id_c
//We will use beans to fetch the related account's details
$account = new Account();
$account->retrieve($bean->account_id);
//Set the values from accounts into deliveries
// $bean is your current record being saved.
// $account is the related account.
$bean->industry_c = $account->industry;
$bean->account_type_c = $account->account_type;
//Same stuff in order to set other values
}
}
?>
Thanks for any help.