Salesforce Validation Rule

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

• Create validation rules to enforce data quality
• Prevent invalid records from being saved
• Generate validation rule metadata with formulas
• Add business logic validation to objects
• Troubleshoot deployment errors related to validation rules

Specification

ValidationRule Metadata Specification

📋 Overview

Validation Rules are declarative metadata components used to enforce data quality and business logic in Salesforce. They evaluate a formula expression when a record is saved and prevent the save operation if the expression returns TRUE.

🎯 Purpose

-Enforce business rules at the data layer -Prevent invalid or incomplete records from being saved -Display meaningful error messages to guide users

⚙️ Required Properties

Core Validation Rule Properties

• fullName
• The unique API name of the validation rule
• Must start with a letter
• Can contain letters, numbers, and underscores
• Cannot end with an underscore
• Cannot contain consecutive underscores
• Cannot exceed 40 character.

• active

-Indicates whether the validation rule is enabled true → Rule is enforced false → Rule is inactive

• errorConditionFormula
• The logical formula that evaluates record data
• Must return TRUE or FALSE
• If TRUE, the validation rule triggers an error

• errorMessage
• The message displayed to the user when validation fails
• Maximum length: 255 characters

Specific Function Guidelines

• TEXT - TEXT() function MUST NOT be used with Text fields, to fix this you can just remove the TEXT() function.
• CASE - In salesforce CASE() function, last parameter is the default value. Admins often miss to provide this and number of parameters to CASE() function are always even.
• VALUE - VALUE() function should only be used with Text fields. If a number is being used as a parameter to the VALUE() function, remove the VALUE() function.
• DAY - DAY() function should only be used with Date fields. If a Datetime field is being used as a parameter to the DAY() function, convert it into a Date first.
• MONTH - MONTH() function should only be used with Date fields. If a Datetime field is being used as a parameter to the MONTH() function, convert it into a Date first.
• DATEVALUE - DATEVALUE() function should only be used with DateTime fields. If a Date is being used as a parameter to the DATEVALUE() function, remove the DATEVALUE() function.
• ISPICKVAL - If checking equality of a picklist type field, the function ISPICKVAL() MUST be used.
• ISCHANGE - Use ISCHANGE() function to check the value of a record has changed.

Critical Rules

1. Formula XML Handling(MOST COMMON ERROR)

• ANY errorConditionFormula containing XML tags MUST be inside a CDATA section in the metadata XML.

2. Interpretation of "Update" Instructions. When receiving instructions to modify a formula, distinguish between a replacement and an addition:

• "Update the formula to [Action]": Completely replace the existing formula logic with the new requirement.
• "Update the formula to also [Action]": Keep the existing logic and append the new requirement (usually by wrapping the logic in an AND() or OR() function).

3. File Format Requirement

• Validation rule files MUST always use the .validationRule-meta.xml extension.