Spoke: Provide UI validation for AK action response

[bchrobot]

Currently the only "validation" for an ActionKit action is this block of small text listing required fields and how ActionKit may be used:

If an ActionKit action is selected, Interaction Step validation should be expanded to ensure that the required fields are present.

[harpojaeger]

These custom fields are required on the contact upload, not on the interaction steps. But it's a good point: my WIP OSDI work also requires the external_id column. So there's a larger question here about whether action handlers should be able to enforce contact uploading rules.

[harpojaeger]

(and what the mechanism would be.)

[Frydafly]

is this still an issue @harpojaeger & @bchrobot ?

[bchrobot]

I'm not sure. We went a different direction for handling external integrations in the politics-rewired/spoke fork

[harpojaeger]

I also haven't worked on Spoke in a couple years, so don't know the status of this.

[Frydafly]

Thanks, @bchrobot & @harpojaeger! I understand it's been some time!

@schuyler1d do you happen know if there have been changes to the ActionKit integration that might address this issue?

[schuyler1d]

Nothing like this has been proposed or worked on. I suppose this could feed a bit on e.g. the VAN/generic-campaign customizations work/thoughts @agreenspan24 has been thinking about. I could imagine the same way that a handler is asked whether it's available() it could be called with a sample contact that the action handler could validate on or return an error message shown to the user. The UI would be tricky because you'd want to show the error message but not allow the admin to select the handler while it's not allowed.

[agreenspan24]

We definitely need some sort of validation on the contact uploads for required fields in specific extensions. But this isn't just an action handler problem, it's also a message handler problem, so that needs to be taken into account. That's why I was initially hoping for some validation when contacts are uploaded instead of just for action handlers.

There could also theoretically be an issue for tag handlers.

Also, if the work is done for action handlers, it needs to be done for actions in interaction steps, but it will also need to be done for actions in canned responses: https://github.com/MoveOnOrg/Spoke/pull/1925

[Frydafly]

@arena thoughts on this issue regarding UI validation?

[arena]

I'm not very familiar with the admin side of Spoke, but I'd be happy to think through this part of the UI with anybody working on it. I have a feeling/hope we might be forced into a Style Guide and some consistent patterns with the Material Design update. 🤞