How to make the subcategory non-mandatory if has no dependent choices on category on a catalog item.

[Nishant16]

I have Category and subcategory fields on a Catalog item, both mandatory. Now i want to make the subcategory non-mandatory if it has no dependent choices.

Can someone help me How to achieve this?

In one of the posts i found the below on change client script on Category which is not working for me:

function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading, isTemplate) {
	if (isLoading || newValue === '') {
return;
 }
	if (newValue !='') {	
	var field = g_form.getControl('subcategory');
	var options = field.options.length;
	if(options==0){
		g_form.setMandatory(field, false);
	}
}}

[Brad Bowman · Accepted solution]

If you alert on options you'll see that the onChange script is running before the ref_qual_elements / reference qualifier finishes, so it contains the number of subcategories for the previous category.  I was also seeing 1, not 0, when -- None -- was the only choice, so here's a script that works to wait a bit then set Mandatory or not:

function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading) {
   if (isLoading || newValue == '') {
      return;
   }
	setTimeout(function() {
		setMand();
	}, 1500);
}

function setMand() {
  	var field = g_form.getControl('subcategory');
	var options = field.options.length;
	if (options==1) {
		g_form.setMandatory('subcategory', false);
	} else {
		g_form.setMandatory('subcategory', true);
	}
}

[Nishant16]

hi Brad,

this script seems not to be working on portal, although the UI type is selected as ALL

[Nishant16]

  
can you please help with the script, since below is not working on portal
@Brad Bowman

[Brad Bowman]

g_form.getControl no longer works in Portal.  I don't see a viable replacement, so a different approach may be necessary.  You can change subcategory to a select box with no choice table or choices, then onChange of Category have a client script call a GlideAjax Script Include that reads the choice table and returns a JSON of the choices.  The advantage to this is that if there are no dependent choices, the client script would recognize/interpret this as setting the variable non-mandatory.  This works in both the native UI and Portal when subcategory is a select box:

function onChange(control, oldValue, newValue, isLoading) {
	if (isLoading || newValue == '') {
		return;
	}

	g_form.clearOptions('subcategory');
	var ga = new GlideAjax('ChoiceLookup');
	ga.addParam('sysparm_name', 'getChoices');
	ga.addParam('sysparm_table', 'incident');
	ga.addParam('sysparm_dependent', newValue);
	ga.addParam('sysparm_element', 'subcategory');
	ga.getXML(setValue);
	
	function setValue(response) {
		var answer = JSON.parse(response.responseXML.documentElement.getAttribute("answer"));
		g_form.addOption('subcategory','',' -- None --');
		
		if (answer.length == 0) {
			g_form.setMandatory('subcategory', false);
		} else {
			g_form.setMandatory('subcategory', true);
			for(var i=0;i<answer.length;i++) {
				g_form.addOption('subcategory',answer[i].value,answer[i].label);
			}
		}
	}
}

 The Client callable Script Include:

var ChoiceLookup = Class.create();
ChoiceLookup.prototype = Object.extendsObject(AbstractAjaxProcessor, {
	
	getChoices : function(){
		var optionsArray = [];
		var json = new JSON();
		var tablename = this.getParameter('sysparm_table');
		var dependent = this.getParameter('sysparm_dependent');
		var element = this.getParameter('sysparm_element');
		var gr = new GlideRecord('sys_choice');
		gr.addQuery('name', tablename);
		gr.addQuery('dependent_value', dependent);
		gr.addQuery('element', element);
		gr.addQuery('inactive', false);
		gr.query();
		while(gr.next()) {
			optionsArray.push({
				'label' : gr.label.toString(),
				'value' : gr.value.toString()
			});
		}
		return json.encode(optionsArray);
	},

    type: 'ChoiceLookup'
});