Creating multiple jobs to dispatch from a single form

[Jared_89]

Hi,
Relatively new to AppSheet and still learning. I’ll try to keep my question concise.
I’m creating a dispatch app to manage companies I subcontract work to for snow removal. I have three tables. One for subcontractors, one for Properties, and one to store jobs generated. At this point I’m able to generate jobs, add them to a route, ect.
My problem is I have dozens of sites per subcontractor, and about 20-30 subcontractors that I would have to add individual jobs for every time there is a snow event. This would potentially equal a couple hundred individual entries per event that I would have to do the night of dispatch.
Is there a way to automate the generation of the jobs, where I would basically select the company, the service they are performing, and then have jobs generated for any sites that have those services? If so what are some resources that I can use to learn how to go about achieving that?

[James_McFarlane]

Hi @Jared_89,

Welcome to the community.

What you would need to do is build a list of Subcontractors and have a loop action that adds the jobs for each.

Look at this post. From @MultiTech_Visions

Looping with Actions (Sample App BUILD Video) Tips & Tricks 💡

There have been many posts about this topic, I thought I would throw one out there showing the creation of a sample app… from start to finish. This way you can follow along if you want, and hopefully end up at the same place I did at the end of the video. (^_^) Here is a link to the app produced in this video (if you want to skip to the end) https://www.appsheet.com/samples/How-to-loop-through-a-list-and-create-child-records-for-each-item-i...

Or this one from @Steve

Looping with actions Tips & Tricks 💡

Kinda burnt out and just wanna get this out. I’ll try to circle back later and provide some documentation. https://www.appsheet.com/samples/Examples-of-loops-using-actions?appGuidString=7b9ae746-1f51-4ecb-8c...

There are more resources in the community you can search for:
https://community.appsheet.com/search?q=looping

[Jared_89]

Great thank you!

[Jared_89]

Alot of great info in those posts! I’ve successfully replicated the looping actions, and also noticed your comment on the link from Steve. Were you able to successfully push out your tasks to multiple employees? It sounds like we have similar goals as I want to be able to do the same thing. I ran into some trouble when I started adding the company name of my subcontractor into the order details generation loop.

[James_McFarlane · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jared_89

Could you provide screen shots of what you have. .

The trick to get it to work, besides the Actions, is creating the List of Values column, in your case list of subcontractors.

List of SubContrators =
select(SubContractorTable[ID],"Some Filter Criteria")

Then the CREATED column. This column formula is based on a RELATED column.

Created Subcontractors=
[Related Assigned Jobs Table][SubContractorID]

And then final column, which is the Remaining Values virtual column

Remaining SubContractors =

[List of SubContractors]
-
[Created]

Hope that helps.

[Jared_89]

Sure! I actually think I’ve worked out the auto generation part and the Subcontractor name stuff and that is all working. My only issue now is that on my Service List page, which is my table that the generated jobs are being sent to, is not showing the Name of the property that is assigned, it only has a button to review the reference. This will be used in a dispatch dashboard view where I’ll need to see the property name along with data entered by the subcontractor in the field. Any ideas on how to switch that to the Property name instead of the view reference button while still using a table view?

[Jared_89]

Oops! Never mind I’m an idiot. I just created another column to reference the name off of the Property reference in my table

[James_McFarlane]

Great you got to figure it out.