How to stop the user from entering the duplicate record on default save - sugarcrm

Question

I have a custom module where there is an email field. Now i want to stop the user if the email is already in the database.
I want to stop the user on save button and show the error. Like when a required field goes empty.
I tried to get some help but was not able to understand it.

Answer 1

Note: I realized after posting this that you are using suitecrm which this answer will not be applicable toward but I will leave it in case anyone using Sugar has this question.
There are a couple of ways to accomplish this so I'll do my best to walk through them in the order I would recommend. This would apply if you are using a version of Sugar post 7.0.0.
1) The first route is to manually create an email address relationship. This approach would use the out of box features which will ensure your system only keeps track of a single email address. If that would work for your needs, you can review this cookbook article and let me know if you have any questions:
https://support.sugarcrm.com/Documentation/Sugar_Developer/Sugar_Developer_Guide_9.2/Cookbook/Adding_the_Email_Field_to_a_Bean/
2) The second approach, where you are using a custom field, is to use field validation. Documentation on field validation can be found here:
https://support.sugarcrm.com/Documentation/Sugar_Developer/Sugar_Developer_Guide_9.2/Cookbook/Adding_Field_Validation_to_the_Record_View/index.html
The code example I would focus on is:
https://support.sugarcrm.com/Documentation/Sugar_Developer/Sugar_Developer_Guide_9.2/Cookbook/Adding_Field_Validation_to_the_Record_View/#Method_1_Extending_the_RecordView_and_CreateView_Controllers
For your example, I would imagine you would do something like this:
Create a language key for your error message:
./custom/Extension/application/Ext/Language/en_us.error_email_exists_message.php
<?php
$app_strings['ERROR_EMAIL_EXISTS_MESSAGE'] = 'This email already exists.';
Create a custom controller for the record creation (you may also want to do this in your record.js):
./custom/modules//clients/base/views/create/create.js
({
extendsFrom: 'RecordView',
initialize: function (options) {
this._super('initialize', [options]);
//reference your language key here
app.error.errorName2Keys['email_exists'] = 'ERROR_EMAIL_EXISTS_MESSAGE';
//add validation tasks
this.model.addValidationTask('check_email', _.bind(this._doValidateEmail, this));
},
_doValidateEmail: function(fields, errors, callback) {
var emailAddress = this.model.get('your_email_field');
//this may take some time so lets give the user an alert message
app.alert.show('email-check', {
level: 'process',
title: 'Checking for existing email address...'
});
//make an api call to a custom (or stock) endpoint of your choosing to see if the email exists
app.api.call('read', app.api.buildURL("your_custom_endpoint/"+emailAddress), {}, {
success: _.bind(function (response) {
//dismiss the alert
app.alert.dismiss('email-check');
//analyze your response here
if (response == '<email exists>') {
errors['your_email_field'] = errors['your_email_field'] || {};
errors['your_email_field'].email_exists = true;
}
callback(null, fields, errors);
}, this),
error: _.bind(function (response) {
//dismiss the alert
app.alert.dismiss('email-check');
//throw an error alert
app.alert.show('email-check-error', {
level: 'error',
messages: "There was an error!",
autoClose: false
});
callback(null, fields, errors);
})
});
},
})
Obviously, this isn't a fully working example but it should get you most of the way there. Hope this helps!