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In numerous situations a user set profile value can become irrelevant.

Example

In a mortgage application information about the applicants' incomes is needed. One of the incomes was entered as permanent contract fultime, but turned out to be a pension income. The fields belonging to the fulltime contract are on screen and are user set present in the profile. 

FieldField visibleField requiredValue
Income typeAlwaysAlwaysWage labor
ProfessionIf Income type = 'Wage labor'If Income type = 'Wage labor'IT analyst
Gross salaryIf Income type = 'Wage labor'If Income type = 'Wage labor'€ 50.000

The user changes the value of field Income type from Wage labor to Pension income.

FieldField visibleField requiredValue
Income typeAlwaysAlwaysPension income
ProfessionIf Income type = 'Wage labor'If Income type = 'Wage labor'IT analyst
Gross salaryIf Income type = 'Wage labor'If Income type = 'Wage labor'€ 50.000
Pension incomeIf Income type = 'Pension income'If Income type = 'Pension income'€ 50.000

Although the values of the fields Profession and Gross salary are not visible nor required anymore, they are still present in the profile. They might not do any harm, but saving them in a database to be collected later or when the profile values are used in a data mapping to another system, could cause issues. 

The example above illustrates what is meant with irrelevant profile values. Are they problematic?

When do irrelevant profile values become a problem?

Irrelevant profile values are not always a problem. For instance, if only a document is generated and the document contains the same conditions as on screen, if the values will not be processed by or saved on another system, if the values are not used in any calculations or other logic etc. Hence, not every application has to deal with irrelevant profile values and if there are no conditional fields it might even be possible they never occur. 

Manage irrelevant values

There are multiple ways to deal with irrelevant values.

  1. Clear irrelevant values with a (sequence of) service call(s)

    When clearing irrelevant values can wait until the page is left, for instance when navigating to a next step in the application, you can model a service call or flow to clear irrelevant values using the Instance_Update service type. 

  2. Clear irrelevant values with a Flow on Refresh container

    When clearing irrelevant values cannot wait until the page is left, for instance when the values are used in calculations or need to be able to be set again either by the user or an external system, you can model a service call and flow to clear irrelevant values using the Instance_Update service type and call this flow with a FlowOnRefresh container type.
  3. Keep irrelevant values and deal with them in the application's logic

    In some situations it might be possible to keep the irrelevant values and use logic to determine whether or not they will be used in any logic or calculation, will be used in any datamapping or will be saved. For instance, in the example above you could model your application in a way that Profession will not be saved or used in a datamapping when Income type is not Wage labor. In some situation you might even want to keep the irrelevant values as long as possible to not frustrate the user when he changes his mind to prevent him from having to enter all information again.

 

 

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