Field dependency shows "Last Modified By" by an user without "Customize Application"

Question

We have the following two custom fields (Type__c and Area__c) in Case Standard object.

While resolving an issue, I found out that the field dependency between Type__c and Area__c has been updated by user.

Please see below.

Now I asked the user as to why he made the change and was told that he never made any changes and even does not know about field dependencies in the first place.

Then I did some research online and found this article.

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?id=000193285&language=en_US

As per this article this field dependency timestamp showing as an user (who does not have "Customize Application") is working as expected and can happen because of the following reasons.

Some other examples of places that could update the picklist_set table are as follows:

When the field dependency is modified
When the picklist field is modified
When a picklist value on a picklist field is modified
When cPicklist.picklist_update_time_nco, cPicklist.picklistset_ups_nocheck_nco is called.

But as per the user he has not made any changes at all with respect to Type__c & Area__c.

Can someone tell me if they have faced any situations like these or are there any actions that the user would have taken inadvertently that would have caused his login to be timestamped ?

Answer 1

I suspect the user either via import or a visualforce page entered a value outside of the picklist choices. I went through an experiment on my Dev org and was able to replicate your issue.

1. Created a dependency on Status and Product.
2. Next I created a simple Visualforce page and had product set as inputText vs inputField.
3. Then I entered a value that was not available in the product picklist choices.
4. This caused the login user timestamp to be displayed as the last modifier of the field Dependency.

VisualForcePage:

<apex:page standardController="Case">
    <apex:form >
        <apex:pageBlock title="My Content" mode="edit">
            <apex:pageBlockButtons >
                <apex:commandButton action="{!save}" value="Save"/>
            </apex:pageBlockButtons>
            <apex:pageBlockSection title="My Content Section" columns="2">
                <apex:inputField value="{!case.status}"/>
                <apex:inputText value="{!case.Product__c}"/>
            </apex:pageBlockSection>
        </apex:pageBlock>
    </apex:form>
</apex:page>