Preventing Relate/Unrelate Action

[alohatech]

Hello,
I Have two entities, A and B. Entity A has a status field, and it has multiple related B records.

I'd like to implement a restriction where, if the status of entity A is set to "Closed", users should not be able to relate or unrelate any B records to A.

The hook for relate and unrelate are just after not before

[alohatech]

When afterRelate runs, Espo has already established the relationship in the DB

[alohatech]

I’m trying to enforce a rule in EspoCRM where users should not be allowed to link related records if a Project is still in "Closed" status.

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Context:

• Entity A (Project)
• Entity B (Resource)
• Relationship: many-to-many → Project ⇄ Resources
• Control field: Project.status
• Block condition: when status === 'Closed'

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Goal:


If the Project.status === 'Closed':

• Users should not be allowed to link new Resources to the Project
• Existing linked Resources should remain untouched
• The Project itself should still save — I just want the new links rolled back silently

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What I’ve Tried:

• I added a beforeSave hook on the Project entity.
• In that hook, I compare resourcesIds:
  php
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  $oldIds = $entity->getFetched('resourcesIds') ?? []; $newIds = $entity->get('resourcesIds') ?? []; $added = array_diff($newIds, $oldIds);
• For each added ID, I run:
  php
  CopyEdit
  $repository->unrelate($entity, 'resources', $id);
• Then I reset the field:
  php
  CopyEdit
  $entity->set('resourcesIds', $oldIds);

I also made sure not to call saveEntity() inside beforeSave to avoid recursion.

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The Problem:


Even though I run unrelate() and reset the IDs in beforeSave, the newly linked Resources still appear after saving.

I suspect this is because EspoCRM creates the many-to-many link before the entity's beforeSave hook is executed, or that the relationship is committed separately and not affected by my rollback.

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Questions:

• How can I cleanly prevent or undo the linking of new Resources to a Project while its status is "Closed"?
• Should this logic go in afterRelate, afterSave, or in a custom controller?
• Is there a recommended EspoCRM way to enforce restrictions on relationship actions?

---

Any suggestions, examples, or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[rabii]

do you have the rekationship as fields ? or are you using panels ? can you share a screenshot. i guess you can use front end to disable unlink & select on the resource panel on project detail view and then use backend to validate your logic.

[alohatech]

Thank you Rabii for your reply, i am having rekationship as panel at the bottom