[_THISROW-n] to work in formulas

Appsheet is really good at being used for a relational database with many layers. I’m working on one for a builder where we have the following tables in order:

Customer
Site
Plot
Choices

When I’m adding a new Choice, I need to find the CustomerID Ref. Its a pain (and inefficent) to have to create columns to pull in these Ref ID’s. Can we have an [_THISROW-n] options for formulas?

Sometimes the data structure can end up looking like this if its simply easier to have every table showing the Ref IDs of all senior tables:

Customer
Site | Customer
Plot | Site | Customer
Choices | Plot | Site | Customer

Status Open
2 4 604
4 Comments
MultiTech
Participant V

One thing that I do to help with finding things in various layers of a relational database is to copy all of the relations from the upper levels into the lower tables.

So like on my timekeeping app, the bottom layer is the logs table. In that layer I have the client link, the project link, the phase link, I also bring in any milestones that I might have made in the system, etc.

By including all of these cross reference points on the individual data tables, I’m able to really quickly create any kind of slice of my data that I want.

It’s a bit of a stray away from your standard data normalization data scheme, but it really helps with speeding up filtering and slicing and all of those things. Instead of having to do lookups and create virtual columns to hold temporary variables, I can just create a simple equality or in statement.

Grant_Stead
Participant V

Also, a helpful tact for various BI platforms…

Fabian_Weller
Participant V
Status changed to: Open
Pratyusha
Community Manager
Community Manager