I have an issue with custom fields and how they are saved/cached by manual edits vs automation edits. I’ve already been in contact with PD support who are in contact with Devs team but they suggested I post here as well to help expedite the process.
Automation:
- Built an automation to help generate and send automated email templates, utilizting custom fields [1a] (type-Text: “To Email Address”) and [1b] (type-Person: “To Email Person”), plus other fields which aren’t applicable here.
- Whenever field [1b] is populated with a Person from our PD Contacts list, a PD webhook (on any deal change) calls my Google Script automation
- This automation checks that it was field [1b] that was populated – if so, it looks up the email address(es) listed for that PD Person, and populates [1a] with that data while simultaneously null-populating/clearing out [1b]
- So far, so good, it appears to work well up to this point, 2 seconds after populating [1b], script is called, clears [1b] and populates [1a] with the related email address(es)
Problems:
- It seems there is some browser cache or something similar which is “remembering” that I previously populated [1b]. All described below happens directly after automation described above is complete (without refreshing the page).
- (lesser issue, but maybe helpful to understand) If I click to edit the empty field [1b] it shows the same PD Person name I previously entered, even though it was just showing as empty. I remove the name, click Save and it shows empty. Click edit again, and the name shows in the edit box. Can clear it and Save as many times as I want, will continue to show every time I edit.
- (main issue causing problems) If I click to edit the now-email-address-populated field [1a] to clear it out (say, after I finish sending my email template, or maybe to postpone till later, etc), upon clearing and clicking Save it clears [1a] and repopulates [1b] with the same PD Person name I previously entered, even though it was just showing as empty (automation hook does NOT fire here, this is all PD interface-related; tested with Postman PUT and saw same effect). Not only does it repopulate [1b] but it also creates a duplicate copy of the PD Person of the same name (but copy doesn’t have any other email/phone/etc details).
- However, if I refresh the page after automation completes, neither of these 2 issues described immediately above show up at all.
- It appears to me… that when I manually edit custom fields and click Save in PD interface, it saves all fields not just the one I am trying to update. Furthermore, it is saving all fields using a client-side cached JSON array or something which doesn’t automatically re-check that my custom fields haven’t changed (via automation) since last time I clicked save (the JSON array/whatever doesn’t receive a check all fields update before PD applies that array data to overwrite all custom fields).
It’s not the biggest deal in the world, but it is causing us duplicate Contact entries to manage, and also seems like it could affect other users utilizing API + automation to run data changes in real-time. I’ve also included a screenshot example explainer below.
