Create a ‘capture history’ field for comments

[Jorah Lavin]

Greetings

I’m using Modern DFFS v1.0.13.0 (most recent approved version in my company).

I have a business case where the version history in a multiline text field is not sufficient. The client needs to be able to export the entire history of various text fields, and SP OOB doesn’t allow that. I figured out how to write the text from the field to a history field, but when there’s a second edit later it overwrites the first comment. I want to concatenate the new comment, along with a date stamp and listing of who wrote the comment, into the history field.

I’m almost certain there was a built-in way to do this in the on-premises version of DFFS, and I’m hoping it’s here and I just haven’t found it yet.

Thanks for any guidance.

[Alexander Bautz]

Hi,
Yes, there was an option when setting field value in the classic version (using “prepend” or “append” keyword in the set field value section of a rule).

I haven’t used the same keywords in the modern version so the method is a bit different.

Use a rule triggering on “Before save of the form” > Set field value and use the “Add dynamic content” control to add something like this following:

[[fieldValue:AppendCustom]]
[[timestamp:{"date":"today","offsetDays":0,"format":"MM/dd/yy"}]] [[currentuser:displayName]]
[[fieldValue:Comment]]

This will append the value from the field “Comment” to the existing text in the “AppendCustom” field.

You can also use custom js like this:

function dffs_PreSaveAction(){
  var currValue = dffs_beforeProperties.AppendCustom !== null ? dffs_beforeProperties.AppendCustom + "\n\n" : "";
  var newValue = new Date().toDateString() + " " + _spPageContextInfo.userDisplayName + "\n" + getFieldValue("Comment")
  setFieldValue("AppendCustom", currValue + newValue);
  return true;
}

Alexander

[Jorah Lavin]

Thank you, Alexander! I was able to get this running, and it’s very nice. This is what I ended up with in my Set Field Value:

=============================================
Edited on [[timestamp:{“date”:”today”,”offsetDays”:0,”format”:”MM/dd/yy at HH:mm”}]] by [[currentuser:displayName]]
Comment: [[fieldValue:Comment]]
-=-
[[fieldValue:History]]
=============================================
After seeing how this worked in DFFS I was able to replicate it in Power Automate as well, which will be handy for folks in the company who don’t have access to DFFS.

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[Alexander Bautz]

Thanks for the feedback – and thanks for sharing the soution.

Alexander

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