Dynamic Fields using Relation Database
Problem Statement: https://github.com/IntuitiveWebSolutions/ProductDevelopmentProject
Project live URL http://britecore-product.us-east-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/
This sample application uses a relational database and allows dynamic fields in forms. Form creator can add as many fields as they want to a specific risk type.
As a Form Creator, he/she can use FormTemplates that are predefined by britecore team, moderators etc. These templates have fields(FormTemplateField) defined which can be used by form creator.
Flow would go like this: If form creator uses "use a template" , a new RiskType would be created, and new RiskTypeField would be created/copied from FormTemplateField.
Now on this RiskType the form Creator can edit, delete and also add new fields.
DB Design:
This design structure allows flexibility in terms of form validations. For example using min max validators, regex check etc. we can define the meta JSON as
meta : {
"is_required": true,
"min": 0
"max" : 100
"regex" : "<some-regex>"
... // other
}
The current live project do not use these meta validations as we are not to submit form.
One of the solutions I thought included storing all the fields into one JSON field. Although JSON approach seems simple and easy to implement, It has concerning problems.
- Saving Response from user Since we have no ID specific to a field we will not be able to map responses of users, properly. That said, it is still possible but will be a development overhead.
- Updating a specific field will require a full JSON update. If the form is huge then a simple update will also cause memory overhead, since you would have to load the entire obj in memory.
- Python with Django Framework
- Relational Database
- Apache Web Server
- Vue JS Front End
- AWS: ElasticBeanStalk Deployment
- VCS: Git
Note: For adding new fields and RiskType and RiskTypeField the functionality is inbuilt by lovely django's admin interface.
Contact me for admin user and password.