When you have long forms (from an audit for e...

When you have long forms (from an audit for example), is it maybe a good practice to break the form into several tables?

Then maybe allow the user to select which part of the form he will fill first, and maybe even fill part of it and return later?

I ask this because in an audit of a large area for example, you may check item 1, 2 and 3 and take photos of those in an areaโ€ฆ then move to the next area and check same items and take more photos of those items, etc.

If itโ€™s a single table, I gather the user would have to go scroll up and down on the form (and imagine if itโ€™s dozens of items) or go back and forth among pages if itโ€™s separated in pages.

As AppSheet doesnยดt have tabs as far as I know (if it had, maybe we could put each page of a form on a tab, each tab a different section), I am thinking if maybe best practice would be to have each different lenghty section of a form on a different table. Then a master table for each single audit/form, with links to the different sections?

I suppose the sections should be โ€œpartofโ€ of the main form (which can maybe have a header, where you get timestamp, who is performing the audit, etc)?

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I would say you have two options to do it. If you want to keep everything in the same table, you could โ€œsplitโ€ it with slices and then create as many form views for these slices as you need.

Another solution would be related tablesโ€ฆ like one main data table and then multi child tables.

What I would do for this is add Show columns and set them as page headers where you want to split your form into different sections. This will split your form into several pages that will be much easier to manage and add data to. I had a similar app that was very long and tedious to scroll up and down and when I added page breaks it made the app a million percent better, easier to use.

Seems there is a problemโ€ฆ

I created the Actions.

But when I go to the Form View, to insert a Event Action to that viewโ€ฆ if the view is of the Form type view, event action is set to FORM SAVED and I canยดt change it to ROW SELECTED.

I was thinking to show them in the detail view.

@Aleksi_Alkio A detail view with an option to Form Header, Question 1, Question 2, etc?

When you open the record from the table (list) view, it will then open the detail view. You will see those action buttons there and you can choose the action button which will open the form from the correct slice.

@Aleksi_Alkio Wait, waitโ€ฆ I am getting more lost than a blind man in a shoot-out! lol

Each record in the table view is a previously registered form entry right?

But the detail view when clicking in one of those entries will take me to details of that entry, not to a menu of each sliceโ€ฆ

Because all entries are ging to fill the same record, you will see them as one row in the table view. When you click that record, you will see details from that record (you can choose what columns to show). Then you will have an action button which will call the next slice and user can fill those questions in that 2nd slice. When he saves it, you wonโ€™t show that action buttons anymore. Insteadโ€ฆ you will show the next action button and so on.

FYI โ€” tabbed forms are on their way. @Sarah_Gould_AppSheet

@Aleksi_Alkio hi Aleksiโ€ฆ I created a test app to test this in a less complex settingโ€ฆ

So I had a table with a timestamp, unique ID, a chosen letter (A to D) and a chosen number.

Clicking save takes me to another slice, where I can add photos (which are put on table โ€œQuestion1โ€) and when I save I am taken to table Question2 where I can add more photos (saved on Table Question2)

Anywayโ€ฆ it seems the problem is that the action button is the SAVE button. Each time I click save to go to another slice, it creates a new row, so all 3 slices (main, question1 and question2) are not same row and are not connected.

The most similar sample app I found was the Dynamic Form Action, but itโ€™s also based on the SAVE form and it doesnยดt continue the form (in the same row)โ€ฆ

@Aleksi_Alkio more precisely " Then you will have an action button which will call the next slice and user can fill those questions in that 2nd slice."

only action button I can choose is the save eventโ€ฆ under VIEWS tab.

I was able to create a Menu View where each image is an action.

But I was not able to create an action button inside a FORM, taking me to another slice. Only thing I get is the save button in the end, which opens a new row when going to the next slice.

That isโ€ฆ the Gallery views and others have Event Actions caled ROW SELECT where I can associate those to going to an action (like going to another view)

The Form View however, under Event Action has ONLY โ€œForm Savedโ€ to associate with an action. And thus, it SAVES and creates a new row.

I was thinking the detail view, where you could have those action buttons because you canโ€™t have action buttons in the form.

Stephenโ€ฆ this is good solution when the form is not huge and you can just go forward. If you need to go back and forward, it wonโ€™t helpโ€ฆ maybe itโ€™s even worse solution. Wellโ€ฆ we donโ€™t know for example how many fields there is. I was expecting he has a lot:-)

@Aleksi_Alkio Yes, I understand that Aleksi.

But you have the detail view with a menu to different slices that correspond to different parts of the form, correct?

Ok, you are in the detail view. You click on the first menu button. It takes you to the PART 1 of the formโ€ฆ which is a FORM view.

The form view always ends with a SAVE. Which opens a new entry.

Thatโ€™s the problem I am seeing and I donยดt know yet how to (or if itโ€™s possible) get around.

For when I finished PART 1 of the form, I have to click SAVE. And I can even attach an action to go back to the MENU after clicking on Part 1 Save, so I can click now on PART 2โ€ฆ and go to part 2 of the formโ€ฆ

But when I do that, itโ€™s another row already!

So I guess the big question isโ€ฆ how do I save a form and go to another view of the same form without opening a new row?

Maybe I should just go back to the long form view or breaking it with headersโ€ฆ

I am not very fond of the menu type view to navigate the form, as the menu doesnยดt show detail of WHAT Audit you are performingโ€ฆ

I will make a small demo app later today so you will understand

Thanks. Make it a How To demo since I think the ones there do not cover exactly this topicโ€ฆ and then other people can find it and understand it too.

@Aleksi_Alkio Aleksiโ€ฆ can I have a child table for a child table? I guess it would be a grandchild table lol

This is related to another question I made here in the community, about adding an irregular number of photos to a question.

So it was suggested to me to use a child table to add photos. So I can add as many photos as I want to a form.

It is working, however, there is a single problem: the photos added to an entry in the parent table can be seen by in any part of that entry where I have the parent/child link to the photos table.

What that means is that if I have a form with 4 questions that need photos, I can add as many photos as I want, but they will be seen by all 4 questions, I did not find a way to tell which photo belongs to each question.

Returning to THIS question about breaking a form however, I suppose that if EACH question that requires a photo is itโ€™s own CHILD TABLE, then you could add a link from each โ€œquestion formโ€ to the photos child table.

Errโ€ฆ that is, if the child table can have multiple parentsโ€ฆ can it?

Child can have multi parents

@Aleksi_Alkio Thanks. But anyway, I decided to go against have parts of the form as child tables because there is no control for how many childs you can add, as they act independently. It would mean the user would be able to create for an audit, several answers to question 2 for example.

I decided to use the slices. I guess that, as each slice is considered itโ€™s own table, I will be able to add the virtual column with LIST type to the end of each Question Slice Table, to add multiple photos.

Onward to understand how to create buttons to navigate back and forth between main table and Questions Slice Tables.

@Aleksi_Alkio Aleksi, can you point me out to some examples or help me with the Slices things for forms?

I was able to create slices for different parts of the form.

However, what I want is, from the main part of the form (a slice called FormStart, which has things like timestamp, WorkSite, Audit Number, etc), have links or buttons to go to the other slices (other parts of the form)

I tried setting a column called IPEs (Individual Protection Equipment) as the type App and then using a linktoview to the slice where IPEs questions are located.

However, I do not get a button or even a link, but a greyed out text โ€œ#control=IPEsโ€

Iโ€™m thinking like thisโ€ฆ One table & multi slices. One main detail view with multi action buttons. Each action button will open an individual slice from the same table.

I have to understand how to create multi action buttons.

Tried to create a MENU view based on a MENU table.

Objective was to follow the LinkToForm example.

However, the Menu view should not be itโ€™s own view like in the example app, but be inside the main/start form.

But somehow I am failing at it.

I created a virtual column of the list type, element type set to ref.

As AppFormula, =menu[nomeitem]

But instead of showing the table (gee, I have another app where it works, using a Select to create the list however), it shows the menu items as text separated by commas. Because everytime I click save it changed the Element Type to Text.

If I decide to create multi action buttonsโ€ฆ how do I do that? Just create several actions in the same table?

Several actions but with different filter criteria. Then you will see only one of them at the same time.

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