How to access another field/combo in the rowedittemplate during creation of a grid row when selectionChanged or checkValue happens?

The situation is as follows : I am creating a row in the grid. I have several properties among which are one combo called 'department' and one field called 'name'. The business rule is that all the 'names' in a 'department' must be unique. The grid does not load all the department-name combinations so I have to make a call to the back-end. I want to make this call when

1. selectionChanged on the 'department' combo happens or
2. when 'checkValue' of the validator options of the 'name' filed happens.

This way I check when either changes. The problem is that this happens during creation and there are no rows in the datasource and no accumulated rows in the transaction log.

How can I access the fields of the 'rowEditTemplate' during creation during these particular events in order to check my values? Is there any other/better way to achieve this?

The editors are not created until you do the first edit. You could use the editRowStarted event to attach your editors logic. They are obtainable using the editorForKey method.

editRowStarted: function (evt, ui) {
    var comboEditor = ui.owner.editorForKey("ProductDescription");
}

I created a small fiddle that assigns a data source for the combo on editRowStarted. It should work as a starting point for what you are trying to achieve.

http://jsfiddle.net/hfen0qea/