Plug-In Thought: Country & Region Field Lists and Validations

[colinfrederickson]

Description:

A Flatfile plugin to provide predefined country and region lists, and validations for ensuring the integrity of region-to-country relationships in uploaded datasets.

Core Features:

Predefined Country and Region Lists: A maintained list of countries and their corresponding regions (e.g., states in the US, provinces in Canada).

Field Validations: Validates that the chosen region belongs to the selected country.

Custom Error Messages: Provides clear error feedback to users if they upload mismatched country-region pairs.

Use Cases:

Data Integrity: Ensure that uploaded datasets have valid country-region pairs.

Error Prevention: By validating data on-the-fly, reduce the chances of bad data entering the system.

Integration Points:

Fields: When defining fields in Flatfile, administrators can choose "Country" or "Region" types, which will utilize the plugin's predefined lists.

Hooks: The plugin will hook into Flatfile's validation processes, checking records for country-region consistency and flagging errors.

Potential Challenges:

Data Maintenance: As geopolitical changes can occur (e.g., new countries or changes in regions), there's a need for periodic updates to the country and region lists.
Performance: For very large datasets, real-time validation might introduce some latency.

Future Enhancements:

Country-Specific Validations: Extend the plugin to support other country-specific validations, like postal code formats.
Dynamic Dropdowns: Depending on the selected country, the region dropdown dynamically adjusts its options. (feature request tracked here: https://flatfile.productsignals.com/search/undefined

Repo with Existing Framework:

https://github.com/colinfrederickson/Boast-Testing