Tips and Tricks: Two Methods for Finding a GUID

In a previous post I used Crystal Reports to find the GUID associated with a program in my tables. Since Crystal Reports is not an option for everyone, I thought I would share two methods that everyone has for discovering the GUID of a picklist item in myEvolv.

Method 1: Form Field Manipulation

If you are trying to determine the GUID value for a picklist field, you can make a quick change in the for designer to expose the GUID.

In this example, I am going to try to figure out the GUID for my Preschool – Classroom program. On the form below, I have the program_providing_service field which uses the “Program Listing – All” lookup table. I have selected ‘Preschool – Classroom’ on the form and will save the form with this value.

Next step is to go to the form designer and edit this form. The program_providing_service field on the form is a Foreign Key field and it is associated with a lookup table. This accounts for how it displays on the form as a picklist field where instead of seeing the GUID of the program providing service, you see its description value from the lookup table.

If we change the Display Type Code of the field to Regular String and clear the value for the lookup table, the Program field will display on the form as a text field and expect the user to type in a GUID. However, on forms where the value already has been entered and saved, the value will display as the GUID of the item selected. So we will change the Display Type Code to Regular String and then Save the form.

Upon re-opening the saved event from before, we see the GUID of ‘Preschool – Classroom’ program displayed in the Program column. Once you have your GUID, you can revert the changes made to the form.

Method 2: Data Insight Report

This method requires a little knowledge about the tables in myEvolv but works when you can’t edit the form to use method 1.

Navigate to Reports >Data Insight Report Writer >Custom Reporting >Custom Reporting

Click Configuration then Click “Create a new virtual view”

Give your virtual view a name and friendly name and then use a simple SQL statement to get everything from the table that contains GUID. In my example, I am looking for everything from the program_info table because that is where all of the programs are kept. user_defined_lut contains all of the user defined lookup table values combined together.

So I will use SELECT * FROM program_info

Save the view and then click “Report Management” and click “Add”. Select “Tabular Report With Header”

Select your virtual view as the data source and click “OK”.

In the Report designer, add the Primary Key Column (in this case program_info_id) – it is usually the one with the same name as the table and then _id at the end.
Also add the description column – in some cases this column might have a different name – for my example, the column I want is program_name.

At the bottom of the screen, you will see a preview of your report with the GUID and the Description so that you can tell which GUID belongs to which item.