Data Driven Events (DDE) Design Best Practices

Follow these best practices to create consistent, user-friendly DDEs.

For more design best practices, see Design Best Practices.

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General DDE guidelines

  • Limit the overall number of DDEs to fewer than 30 per layout.

  • Limit Apply Conditional Layout (ACL) events to fewer than 25 per layout.

  • Always True conditions should always be set with one of the following conditions:

    • First Published Date is greater than 1/1/1900

    • First Published Date is NULL (leave blank)

  • Test all DDEs with test user accounts to ensure they are working as expected.

  • Test individual firing of events by hitting the following keys all at once CTRL+ALT+(left click)

  • Ensure you have the proper order of rules for your specific scenario.

  • Apply Conditional Layout actions have a specific order of precedence for the actions. Actions are ranked below from Highest precedence to Lowest. Highest means that it will trump others if it's been selected.

    • Section

      • Read

      • Display

      • Do Not Display

      • Use Default Settings

    • Fields

      • Required

      • Read

      • Display

      • Do Not Display

      • Use Default Settings

Naming conventions

  • Rule names should indicate what's being evaluated (example Status = Active)

  • Action names should indicate what they do (Hide General Information Section)

When are DDEs triggered?

  • New record > All rules evaluated, Set Value, Filter values list, and Apply conditional layout actions are executed.

  • Edit existing record > All rules evaluated, Filter values list and apply conditional layout actions are executed.

  • Field modified > All rules evaluated, set actions apply if they’re linked To rules that contain the field modified – Filter, and apply conditional layout actions execute.

  • Save existing record > Calc fields calculate, all rules evaluate, Generate Notification actions execute.

  • View existing record > all rules evaluated, Apply Conditional layout actions execute

Important: DDE actions to not trigger for hidden fields.