Is it possible? Active vs Inactive members

leahcarn · 10-06-2019 08:56 PM

In our app, we have a huge database of clients. For a drop-down menu, I’d like to offer a choice of only those we have dealt with recently, or select “Inactive Member” and that opens another dropdown menu to access the larger list. I can separate the database in question into slices for active and inactive, but is it possible to have the dropdown menus function like that, or any other setup that would give similar functionality?

Lynn

Hi @leahcarn Check out dropdowns

leahcarn

Yes I’ve played with dropdowns before, what I’m wanting to do is nest one dropdown menu inside another, almost? Does that make sense?

Mark_11

how do you filter the inactives in the first dropdown?

leahcarn

I was wondering if a dropdown could refer to a a slice, where the slice is “active members”, but then I can’t figure out how to select “inactive member” from there to select one of those.
Or if not referring to a slice, then filtered as per example 3 on the above link.

Mark_11

you cant i guess but i’m not sure; if you have a method to determine when a member is inactive, you can set value in a dedicated coloumn (Inactive Y/N) with a workflow and then filter the dropdown with a SELECT.
This is why i’m asking how do you filter people…

leahcarn

That makes sense to me, and I’m flexible on how to filter people to achieve the end result that I’m after, but the bit I really want to know, is: Is it possible to have access to inactive members from within the active member dropdown menu or nearby, for the rare occasions it is required, or do they have to stay entirely separate?

Mark_11

You need a table “Members” and two Enum coulumns: [inactive Y/N], [choose member].
The first Enum [inactive Y/N] will be a Button Y / N,

[choose member] show if ISNTBLANK([inactive Y/N]), valid if SELECT[members[Member],[inactive Y/N]=[_thisrow].[inactive Y/N]).

Before you can do this, you need to create a method to set all the values for the [inactive Y/N] coloumn

leahcarn

Thanks Mark, so how would that appear in terms of UI?
Would it be:
Member active? and then choice of Y/N
List of members - Partial list based on previous selection

If so, that’s not what I’m wanting. I’m wanting more:
Choose member Person A/Person B/Person C/Inactive member
And then if Inactive member is chosen, a further list of Person, X, Y Z.
Hope that clarifies things

Mark_11

Yeah, it’s the first scenario.

So, the path to follow could be similar, but a little more tricky i guess.
Are A - B - C - X - Y - Z in the same coloumn like a coloumn [member]?

leahcarn

Yes they are in the same column, member, with a separate column Active? Y/N

Mark_11

I don’t get why you want to do this in two step so; isn’t the final result, the same? A filtered dropdown.

You can double the [choose member] coloumn. The first one will include a constant row “inactive”.
If you choose “inactive”, a “twin” dropdown will appear with a filter “inactive”.
When you choose “inactive” at the first dropdown, aren’t you doing the same of choosing “member active” Y/N?
Is like you want a dropdown where you are telling “oh, no this isn’t the list i’m looking for…show me the other list”
Maybe i’m wrong, because is not that easy to figure out how the project works without seeing it.

leahcarn

“oh, no this isn’t the list i’m looking for…show me the other list” is exactly what I’m going for.
99.5% of the time the person I am looking for will be in the first, active member list, so I would really prefer selecting a member from there to be a one-click process.

Can you explain more about doubling the [choose member] column? That sounds more like what I’m after

Mark_11

you can create [choose member] and another coloumn [choose inactive]

[choose member] valid if ANY(SELECT(Members[Member], ([inactive Y/N] = “N”)))
The row “inactive member” is a constant and we would see it as “active”, so set the value “N”

Now you want a second dropdown

[choose inactive] / show if [choose member]=“inactive member” /
valid if ANY(SELECT(Members[Member], ([inactive Y/N] = “Y”)))

You have two dropdown,

the first with all the actives + “inactive member”
the second optional with the inactives.

I hope at least

leahcarn

That sounds logical.
Is it possible for the second column [choose inactive] to be a virtual column, and have the member name input into the same column regardless of which dropdown menu they were selected from, or is that a step too far?

Mark_11

i dont have the answer, if the clue is to bring back togheter the members, maybe could be a third coloumn that pick from the ones is filled, but i dont have the knowledge at this point

leahcarn

Thanks Mark, it seems to look really good on the UI side of things, but trying to pull all the data together into a third field is proving tricky.
I have IF(ISNOTBLANK([Inactive Member]), [Inactive Member], [Active Member]), and it works fine in testing but returns blanks in the app itself. Do I just need to sync a couple of times or is something wrong with the formula?

Mark_11

can u try with ISNOTBLANK([_thisrow].[Inactive member])?

leahcarn

That actually stopped it working correctly, it was returning the Active member field regardless, so my Inactive member got returned as Inactive member, rather than that members name

Mark_11

In my test your first formula works…
Do you have a virtual column “text”?

leahcarn

Yea it works in my test as well, but fails when actually executed. None of the columns are virtual, [active member] and [inactive member] are text columns, and the third column is a Ref

Mark_11

why is a ref?

leahcarn

Because it connects the member to the table where all their contact information is held

Mark_11

at this point i’m a bit stucked.
You are still in time to use the first method with a Y/N button …
I hope someone can help because i can’t figure a way out at this point.

leahcarn

Thanks, I’ll play around with that

Sergio_Sa

hi @leahcarn. I don’t know if I realized your problem exactly, but you can try a solution like this:

leahcarn

Thanks for all your help so far, we got so close!