Ability to allow a child record to be part of multiple parent records

[Marc_Dillon]

RE: Multiple IsPartOf references in one record

Currently the editor does not allow two Ref columns in a table to have IsPartOf set to True. Currently this setting is the only way to show a blank list on the parent record where a user can add new child records. So Either separate that function from the IsPartOf selections, or allow multiple IsPartOf Refs.

What is the reason that this currently cannot be set for two Ref columns?

[Aleksi]

I’m not sure what is your goal in here… do you want to have two ref fields for the same parent record?

[Reza2]

I believe the idea is to be able to have more than one child inline views in a parent form view.

[Ivan2]

You can try adding the same table twice and setting the Ref on the new table. Data will be stored in the same table on the backend.

[Marc_Dillon]

My specific goal is that I have two separate inventory systems (raw material & product), with two separate inventory adjustment parent tables (material usage & delivery, and product orders), each with child records that ref to an inventory item in the specific inventory table. In rare cases, and product order can include an item from the raw material inventory. My solution that seemed easiest was simply to add a ref column to the material system child records that can point to a product order. The only problem is as stated above.

@Ivan That is very intriguing , have you done this before? I’ll have to explore this.

[Reza2]

Ivan:

You can try adding the same table twice and setting the Ref on the new table. Data will be stored in the same table on the backend.

Just so you know this would cause AppSheet to actually load that table’s back-end data twice and likely impacting the sync time depending on the table size.

[FatLou]

@Reza @Marc_Dillon

Any updates on this? This would be awesome. My example is as follows:
I have a Contact table and an Organization Table
I also have a ContactsAndOrganizations table this table holds relationships between the Contacts and the Organizations table therefor it has columns that reference both the Contacts table and the Organizations Table.

I want the ContactsAndOrganizations Table to be IsPartOf for both Contacts and Organizations. That way if either the Organization or the Contact the ContactsAndOrganizations row references is deleted then that entry is deleted as well.

Cheers,
FL

[Marc_Dillon]

I do not believe they changed anything in regards to this.

In my case, a specific goal was to have the empty list with “New” button show up in the form (requires isPartOf), for user’s ease of input. I ended up just adding an action button so the user can add these children from the detail view once the initial parent was created.

There may be a workaround for your case, to delete a record once a parent is deleted, maybe via api.

[FatLou]

Got it. It seems like it would be a straight forward fix. But I do not know the intricacies of AppSheet’s backend. I could create an Action/Workflow that will do what I want but it seems that since the functionality already exist it could just be extended.

Cheers,