# Serizalization not working on smart collections

**URL:** <https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253>\
**Category:** Help me!\
**Created:** [September 9, 2021, 9:37am UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253 "2021-09-09T09:37:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 9:37am UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/1 "2021-09-09T09:37:53Z")

</div>

Hi team,

I’m facing a problem with a smart collection using the RecordSerializer.

I’m getting my data from an external API, I can print the result but the output from the serialize method is empty.

Here is my code with the url and credentials hidden ( **routes/merchants.js** ):

```javascript
router.get('/merchants', async (request, response, next) => {
  const res = await axios.post('https://api.xxxxx.io/client/signin', { login: "xxxxx", password: "xxxxx" })
  const merchantsList = await axios.get('https://api.xxxxx.io/cashback/merchants', { headers: { 'api-token': 'xxxxx', 'jwt-token': res.data.jwtToken }});
  const merchantsSerializer = new RecordSerializer({ name: 'merchants' });
  const merchants = await merchantsSerializer.serialize(merchantsList);
  response.send({ ...merchants });

```

Here is my collection ( **forest/merchants.js** ):

```javascript
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');

collection('merchants', {
  isSearchable: false,
  fields: [{
    field: 'merchantId',
    type: 'Number',
  }, {
    field: 'isActive',
    type: 'Boolean',
  }, {
    field: 'name',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'category',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'description',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'condition',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'image',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'websiteUrl',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'activationUrl',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'online',
    type: 'Boolean',
  }, {
    field: 'addresses',
    type: '[\'String\']',
  }, {
    field: 'externalMerchantSource',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'externalMerchantId',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'systemAdditionalField',
    type: 'String',
  }, {
    field: 'clientComissionInPercent',
    type: 'Number',
  }, {
    field: 'balanceAlertingAmount',
    type: 'Number',
  }, {
    field: 'balanceAlertingEmails',
    type: '[\'String\']',
  }],
});

```

Finally, here is the result of the merchants value from the serialize method:  
`{ data: { type: 'merchants' } }`

Is there a solution to fix this ? Am I missing something from the documentation ?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sliman\_Medini](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/sliman_medini/32/19_2.png) [@Sliman\_Medini](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Sliman_Medini)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 9:55am UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/2 "2021-09-09T09:55:33Z")

</div>

Hi @Hsohm,

You will find [here](https://docs.forestadmin.com/documentation/reference-guide/collections/serializing-your-records#example-2-smart-collection-example-with-an-added-belongsto-relationship) an explanation with examples about the input format for the serializer.

I suggest to start with a minimal model with just the id and the name.

Let me know if that helps.

Regards

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 9:58am UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/3 "2021-09-09T09:58:48Z")

</div>

I already followed this documentation for my project.

I tried with the name and the merchantId only but the result is still the same, empty…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon79585656](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ab992/32.png) [@anon79585656](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/anon79585656)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/4 "2021-09-09T12:59:42Z")

</div>

Hello @Hsohm,

Would you mind sharing the response from `const merchantsList = await axios.get(...`?  
This may come from a data format incompatibility between your records and what is expected by our serialiser.

Thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/5 "2021-09-09T13:08:23Z")

</div>

Hello @anon79585656,

Here is the output of `merchantsList` wrapped:

```javascript
{[
    {
        createdAt: '2021-06-23T07:49:02.580Z',
        merchantId: 2302,
        isActive: true,
        name: 'TITI',
        category: 'TOTO',
        description: 'Lorem Ipsum',
        condition: 'Lorem Ipsum',
        image: 'https://static.xxxxxxx.htmal1.com/logos190_90/logo-6111.gif',
        activationUrl: 'https://xxxxxxx.xxxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx/cashback/activate/xxxxxx/129143',
        online: true,
        externalMerchantSource: 'TATA',
        externalMerchantId: '129143',
        amount: 1000000,
        clientComissionInPercent: 30,
        clientId: 21,
        addresses: [],
        rules: [Array] },
      ... 445 more items ] }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon79585656](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ab992/32.png) [@anon79585656](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/anon79585656)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/6 "2021-09-09T13:57:43Z")

</div>

A quick shot.

I see a pair of curly brackets in your last response. Is it really there or is that due to how you logged the data? If it is there, please remove it, the serialiser expects an array.

Also there is no `id` in you data. Is one of your fields set as a primary key?

Can you tell me your project name, and on which environment you are working so I can look a bit deeper in the configuration on our side?

Thank you

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 2:00pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/7 "2021-09-09T14:00:38Z")

</div>

Yes I reworked the indentation because there is too many elements, I don’t have the beginning of the logs.

About the ID it’s not set as a primary key, could solve the problem ? How to define a value as the Id ?

I’m on macOs with forest-express-sequelize version 7.0.0

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon79585656](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ab992/32.png) [@anon79585656](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/anon79585656)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/8 "2021-09-09T15:04:06Z")

</div>

@Hsohm, I was talking about the name for your ForestAdmin project and environment (“production”, “dev”… you can see it in the top left of ForestAdmin).

Regarding the log, it would really help to have it all.  
Can you try something like

```javascript
console.dir(merchantsList, { depth: null });

```

Or (first item only):

```javascript
console.dir(merchantsList[0], { depth: null });

```

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/9 "2021-09-09T15:32:34Z")

</div>

The project name is “sponsoplus-admin” in development.

The first value is the list of the merchants but the second value is undefined.

Here is an example of the first console.dir:

```javascript
{
      createdAt: '2021-06-23T07:49:02.580Z',
      merchantId: 2302,
      isActive: true,
      name: "xxxx",
      category: 'xxxx',
      description: "xxxx",
      condition: "xxxx',
      activationUrl: 'xxxx',
      online: true,
      externalMerchantSource: 'xxxx',
      externalMerchantId: '129143',
      amount: 1000000,
      clientComissionInPercent: 30,
      clientId: 21,
      addresses: [],
      rules: [
        {
          createdAt: '2021-06-23T07:49:02.651Z',
          cashbackRuleId: 1497,
          isActive: true,
          description: 'xxxx',
          rules: [
            '(^| )kiehls($| )',
            '(^| )kiehl($| )',
            '(^| )kieh($| )',
            '(^| )kie($| )'
          ],
          merchantId: 2302,
          isCashbackDynamic: false,
          cashbackType: 'PERCENTAGE',
          cashbackAmount: 5.2,
          cashbackAmountMin: 0,
          cashbackAmountMax: 1000000,
          condition_name: 'NONE',
          condition_params: 0,
          dateStart: '2021-04-02 07:57:36',
          dateEnd: '2349-12-31 23:00:00',
          externalRuleSource: 'xxxx',
          externalRuleId: '416733'
        }
      ]
    },
    ... 445 more items
  ]

```

I think I’m missing the id value but how to define it when it’s not present in the api response ?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon79585656](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ab992/32.png) [@anon79585656](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/anon79585656)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 4:15pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/10 "2021-09-09T16:15:09Z")

</div>

@Hsohm,

Thank you for the details.

Per the doc, in this (sightly hidden) [snippet](https://docs.forestadmin.com/documentation/reference-guide/collections/create-a-smart-collection#creating-a-smart-collection),

> You **MUST** declare an `id` field when creating a Smart Collection. The value of this field for each record **MUST** be unique.

You have to add an ID to your records. Adding it to the records seems to be enough, no need to change your collection definition.

A fast way to do it can be to require the uuid module and modify your code like that:

```javascript
const { v1: uuidv1 } = require('uuid');

// .....

router.get('/merchants', async (request, response, next) => {
  const res = await axios.post('https://api.xxxxx.io/client/signin', { login: "xxxxx", password: "xxxxx" })
  const merchantsList = await axios.get('https://api.xxxxx.io/cashback/merchants', { headers: { 'api-token': 'xxxxx', 'jwt-token': res.data.jwtToken }});

  // <--------
  merchantsList.forEach((merchant) => { merchant.id = uuidv1(); });
  // <--------

  const merchantsSerializer = new RecordSerializer({ name: 'merchants' });
  const merchants = await merchantsSerializer.serialize(merchantsList);
  response.send({ ...merchants });
});

```

Let me know if this works.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2021, 9:26am UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/11 "2021-09-10T09:26:07Z")

</div>

That was my mistake, I solved this by adding a `uuid` as u said and here is the final code working:

```javascript
router.get('/merchants', async (request, response, next) => {
  const { data } = await axios.get('https://api.xxxxx.xx/cashback/merchants', { headers: { 'api-token': 'xxxxxxxx' }});
  data.forEach((merchant) => { merchant.id = uuidv1(); });
  const merchantsSerializer = new RecordSerializer({ name: 'merchants' });
  const merchants = await merchantsSerializer.serialize(data);
  response.send({ ...merchants });
});

```

I replaced `merchantsList` by `{ data }` because axios doesn’t return only the data, there is more informations that we don’t need/use and can’t iterate on this.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hsohm](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.forestadmin.com/hsohm/32/2984_2.png) [@Hsohm](https://community.forestadmin.com/u/Hsohm)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2021, 1:25pm UTC](https://community.forestadmin.com/t/serizalization-not-working-on-smart-collections/3253/12 "2021-11-16T13:25:44Z")

</div>

I found a new solution with less compute for the back-end using the `get` option on the `collection` in the `forest` directory.

Here is the solution to use an existing ID as primary ID:

```javascript
collection('merchants', {
  isSearchable: true,
  fields: [{
    field: 'id',
    type: 'String',
    get: record => record.merchantId
  }, {
    field: 'merchantId',
    type: 'Number',
  }],
});

```