Form's fieldReference name in the ddmforminstancereport entity

Issue

• The modified value of the FieldReference field of forms should also be updated in the database ddmforminstancereport entity once the user modified on form's UI.
  Steps to reproduce:
  1) Create a form
  2) Add a 'Text' field
  3) Navigate to the 'Advanced' tab of this field
  4) Change text in the 'FieldReference' field
  5) Publish form
  Observed Behavior: In the database (ddmforminstancereport), the default string is still present, although, a modified value can be seen on UI in the field of FieldReference.

Environment

• Liferay DXP 7.4 Update 1

Resolution

• The observed behavior is the intended behavior of the Liferay DXP. 
• The database was designed to meet the needs of DXP and could not be modified here.
  If the field reference is added there, then every time a field reference changes, the rows of this table must be updated so that the data does not become obsolete.
  
  • The field name is immutable and it was created for this kind of use case where the user needed a constant identifier. Please keep in mind that this table is also an auxiliary table that helps to plot the graphs inside Forms.

Additional Information

• If the user wants to leverage the data inside of it, here’s a workaround that should work for them: firstly search for the field by its reference, capture its name, then use it to search the data inside this table.
  • If users have access to their DDMForm they can try to use the getDDMFormFieldsReferencesMap method. This method returns a map with the FieldReference as the key. Then, it is possible to access the Field ID as follows:

    Map<String, DDMFormField> ddmFormFields = ddmForm.getDDMFormFieldsReferencesMap(true);
    DDMFormField ddmFormField = ddmFormFields.get("FirstName");
    String fieldID = ddmFormField.getName();

    This way users can use the fieldID instead to get data from the posted form

  • Therefore, to sum up, users are able to create a groovy script that would allow them to retrieve data from the table.

• We have a channel called "Global Service Team" in case of further assistance regarding any script, customization, and development.