We have implemented a new category for our cases, and called it Layer 8. It was a toss up between that and PICNIC or PEBKAC. But Layer 8 seemed to be the most PC way of saying that it was a user issue not a system issue.
Yesterday a user came to me frantic, because his report "wasn't working". I took a look at the report, and it seemed to be functioning as he wanted. However, there was a field that he was using as a filter, that was showing a "Last Communication" type of something other than what the actual last activity was.
I explained that the problem wasn't the report, it was the value in the field that was being used as a filter, it didn't seem to be updating correctly. He asked me to please fix it ASAP, it was an emergency.
I immediately took some time to look over the code that updates that field. The code specifies, if the last activity on that record was a type in this predetermined list, then update the field "Last Communication". This allows the users to see if we called last, and can now send a fax or an email etc. (we don't want to send too many emails/faxes in a row).
The Type on the Activity that he was using was "Fax". The picklist doesn't include the type of "Fax", it only has "Fax Received" and "Fax Sent". Therefore, the predetermined list on the trigger wasn't seeing his activity entry as a "communication"!
My trigger wasn't malfunctioning! :-)
So, after about 2 hours of searching through my code, and trying to figure out why that field wasn't updating, it turns out that it was actually a "Layer 8" issue!
I explained to the user that the Apex Data Loader will let you put pretty much anything that you want into a picklist field, even if the option doesn't exist when you are adding the activity manually. I advised him that he needed to use one of the predetermined "Types", and provided him a list.
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