Designer

When creating a new order, the order date should default to the current date.

There are three types of business rules that can be used for this purpose. Choose any one of the suggested implementations below.

SQL Business Rule

Switch back to the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, open the Controllers tab. Right-click on Orders / Business Rules node, and press New Business Rule option.

Specify the following values:

set @OrderDate = getdate()

Press OK to save the business rule. Press Browse in the top left corner, and wait for the page to load. Navigate to Order Form, and create a new order. Select a customer and employee. You will see that the current date has been inserted into the Order Date field.

Code Business Rule

C# or Visual Basic may be used as an alternative to SQL.

Switch back to the Project Designer.

If you have implemented the business rule above, then delete it. In the Project Explorer, right-click on Orders / Business Rules / New (SQL / Execute) – r100 node, and press Delete.

Create a “code” business rule with the following properties:

Press OK to save.

Code business rules cannot be directly edited using the Project Designer, and do not exist until the project has been regenerated.

On the toolbar, press Browse to regenerate the project.

When complete, right-click on Orders / Business Rules /  New (Code / Execute) – r100 node, and press Edit Rule in Visual Studio.

The rule file will be opened in Visual Studio. The entire class definition and parameters of the business rule method are already defined. Replace the body of the rule with the UpdateFieldValue method:

C#:

using System;
using MyCompany.Data;

namespace MyCompany.Rules
{
    public partial class OrdersBusinessRules : MyCompany.Data.BusinessRules
    {
        [Rule("r100")]
        public void r100Implementation(
                    int? orderID, 
                    string customerID, 
                    string customerCompanyName, 
                    int? employeeID, 
                    string employeeLastName, 
                    DateTime? orderDate, 
                    DateTime? requiredDate, 
                    DateTime? shippedDate, 
                    int? shipVia, 
                    string shipViaCompanyName, 
                    decimal? freight, 
                    string shipName, 
                    string shipAddress, 
                    string shipCity, 
                    string shipRegion, 
                    string shipPostalCode, 
                    string shipCountry)
        {
            UpdateFieldValue("OrderDate", DateTime.Now);
        }
    }
}

Visual Basic:

Imports MyCompany.Data
Imports System

Namespace MyCompany.Rules

    Partial Public Class OrdersBusinessRules
        Inherits MyCompany.Data.BusinessRules

        <Rule("r100")> _
        Public Sub r100Implementation( _
                    ByVal orderID As Nullable(Of Integer), 
                    ByVal customerID As String, 
                    ByVal customerCompanyName As String, 
                    ByVal employeeID As Nullable(Of Integer), 
                    ByVal employeeLastName As String, 
                    ByVal orderDate As Nullable(Of DateTime), 
                    ByVal requiredDate As Nullable(Of DateTime), 
                    ByVal shippedDate As Nullable(Of DateTime), 
                    ByVal shipVia As Nullable(Of Integer), 
                    ByVal shipViaCompanyName As String, 
                    ByVal freight As Nullable(Of Decimal), 
                    ByVal shipName As String, 
                    ByVal shipAddress As String, 
                    ByVal shipCity As String, 
                    ByVal shipRegion As String, 
                    ByVal shipPostalCode As String, 
                    ByVal shipCountry As String)
            UpdateFieldValue("OrderDate", DateTime.Now)
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

Save the file. If you create a new order in the web application, the Order Date will be populated with the current date.

JavaScript Business Rule

Business rules can also be written in JavaScript if default values can be calculated entirely on the client.

If you created one of the above business rule implementations, delete it now.

Create another business rule with this configuration:

[OrderDate] = new Date();

Note that the business rule must execute after the command “New”, because the record is not instantiated on the client until after the command is executed by the application framework on the server.

Save the file. The business rule will work as shown in the illustration at the top.

When creating a new order, the first item that will be entered will probably be the customer. Due to the denormalized nature of Northwind database, the customer information is stored in the table Customers, and the Orders table references a customer via a foreign key field CustomerID. Upon creating a new order, it would be convenient if the user were prompted to either select an existing customer or create a new one. When the customer is selected, the shipping information should be copied from the customer to the order.

Switch back to the Designer. In the Project Explorer, double-click on Order Form / c101 / view1 / grid1 / CustomerID –> CustomerCompanyName / CustomerID (String(5)) field reference node.

Enter the following settings for CustomerID:

Press OK to save the field.

When the customer has been selected, we’d want the application to prompt the user to select the employee handling the order. To make this part easier, let’s add photos of each employee in the lookup.

In the Project Explorer, double-click on Order Form / c101 / view1 (Orders) / grid1 / EmployeeID –> EmployeeLastName / EmployeeID (Int32) field reference node.

Change the following settings for EmployeeID:

Press OK to save the record.

Switch to the Controllers tab at the bottom of the Project Explorer. Expand the Fields and Views nodes of Employees controller. Drag and drop Employees / Fields / Photo (Byte[]) field node onto Employees / Views / grid1 view node.

On the Project Designer toolbar, press Browse, and wait for the application to load. Navigate to the Order Form page, and press New Orders on the action bar. You will be prompted to select a customer.

When you search for and select a customer, you will then be prompted to select an employee. You can see the photo for each employee as well.

Select the employee, and you will see that the shipping fields have been populated from the selected customer.