Question

I am using Code First, Entities, MVC3 + Razor, we have forms which have many steps in them (which also have to be audited)

I have Forms, which have Steps, so the model looks like this.

public class MyForm
{
    public int FormId { get; set; }
    public Guid UniqueReferenceId { get; set; }
    public DateTime DateCreatedOn { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string DetailsOfContact { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<AuditItem> AuditItems { get; set; }
}

public class AuditItem
{
    public int AuditItemId { get; set; }
    public int FormId { get; set; }
    public string ActionByUserUid { get; set; }
    public DateTime DateOfAction { get; set; }
    public int Step { get; set; }

    public virtual MyForm MyForm { get; set; }
}

The trouble then comes when I want to display a user interface showing summary information from the form along with what the latest step it is at, details the progress of the many forms submitted, a table with which step they are at and a summary. The performance is bad even with just a handful of records, let alone when we have thousands in it. I have to query across the tables, with:

I have to get the step from the latest date, rather than just the latest ‘step’ number, as it’s possible for a form to go back to a previous step.

int latestAuditStep = myForm.AuditItems
    .OrderByDescending(ai => ai.DateOfAction)
    .Select(ai => ai.Step)
     .First();

Obviously this is quite expensive, and I’m looking for a better way to tackle this modelling issue.

Note: I would have ideally liked to look at using WWF, as that seems the best tool to use in conjunction, but I have not had enough time up front to learn that, rather than just having to ‘get the job done’, so don’t know whether it would have helped or not.

Answer 1

Still not perfect, but

return AuditItems.OrderBy(ai => ai.DateOfAction).Last()

certainly shortened the code.