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AlexGale's avatar
AlexGale
Qrew Captain
7 years ago

Associate existing child record to existing parent record from parents table.

I have two related tables, a Parent and a Child. The way users typically use my app, they often find themselves wanting to associate new Children to a Specific Parent record, without actually knowing ...
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QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
QuickBaseCoachD
Qrew Captain
7 years ago
I do this all the time for my clients, but the process is a bit too complicated to explain here.  basically my process is that you launch off a Parent record  into a report of children with no parents.  You can then click click click on as many children as you like and have full access to the dynamic filters and search box on a regular table report.  Then click a button to get back to your parent and you will see your Parent with all its children now attached.

Contact me via the information on my website if you would will like me to set this up for you and teach you the technique to use in future.  It involves no "javascript" , all native Quick Base.

My contact info is at QuickBaseCoach.com

It usually takes about 1.5 hours to set this up and do the training so you understand what I have done and could replicate it if you need the technique for another similar situation. 
  • TateForgey's avatar
    TateForgey
    Qrew Assistant Captain
    7 years ago
    <Repost>
  • AlexGale's avatar
    AlexGale
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    I appreciate your willingness to help. That does seem like exactly what I am looking for. I may end up contacting you, but for now we need to consider how involved the process seems to be on our end. 
  • QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
    QuickBaseCoachD
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    I can do a quick demo if needed.

    There is an app which does quotes to customers.  The similar need is to create the parent "Quote" and then quickly add product line items to the quote where there are thousands of possible products and there may be a need to add say 5 lines to a Quote..
  • AlexGale's avatar
    AlexGale
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Hi, 

    I've been working on this problem on and off for a while now and I still haven't come up with a solution. Do you by any chance have a link to this quotes app that I could view for reference, and to see the feature in action? 

    Thanks
  • QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
    QuickBaseCoachD
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    If you contact me via my website, I can show you the technique in action on a live production app.

    Basically the technique is to have a table of users with key field User.  The user clicks and launches off the Parent record and the URL formula button creates or updates their User record with the Focus Parent Record ID#.  Then the user will redirect to a report of children.  That User Focus Record ID# is looked up down to the child records via a relationship with a reference formula field if User().

    So now it knows the parent record to hook it up to and a URL formula field can make that API_Edit.

    I'm at QuickBaseCoach.com
    • BenjaminHarvey's avatar
      BenjaminHarvey
      Qrew Member
      5 years ago
      Hello I have a question about this step of the process.  In my relationship with my User Focus table I can't gets the child records to pull only the record with the current user referenced.  Could you explain this a little bit more for me?

      ------------------------------
      Benjamin Harvey
      ------------------------------
  • AlexGale's avatar
    AlexGale
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Oh that makes some sense. I was thinking that maybe I could use a relationship like that to store the information about the parent record ID#, but the problem was it would break down with multiple users. 

    I'll try this out, thanks. 
  • QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
    QuickBaseCoachD
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Thx crux of the code is this

    //Note to self: remember to set permissions on the User Focus table

    var text AddUser = URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_USER_FOCUS] & "?act=API_AddRecord"
     & "&_fid_6=" & ToText(User())
     & "&_fid_7=" & ToText([Record ID#]);

    var text EditUser = URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_USER_FOCUS] & "?act=API_EditRecord"
    & "&key="  & ToText(User())
    & "&_fid_7=" & ToText([Record ID#]);

    var text DisplayReport = URLRoot() & "db/" & [_DBID_PRODUCT_CATEGORIES] & "?a=q&qid=7";

    If([User exists in User Focus Table?],
    $EditUser& "&rdr=" & URLEncode($DisplayReport),
    $AddUser& "&rdr=" & URLEncode($DisplayReport))
  • AlexGale's avatar
    AlexGale
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Oh that's very helpful, thanks. I hadn't been thinking about it, but of course the workflow would otherwise break down if the user didn't exist. 
  • QuickBaseCoachD's avatar
    QuickBaseCoachD
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Exactly, and I didn�t want to have to train my universe to remember to add themselves

    Exactly, and I didn�t want to have to train my users to remember to add themselves to that users table.

    So the first time in their life that they push the button It will create a record in the users table and then for the rest of their life it will just edit that record. Make sure you remember to give everybody the ability to add and edit those records.
  • AlexGale's avatar
    AlexGale
    Qrew Captain
    7 years ago
    Ha! I can't pretend that my users would be any better about remembering little technical things like that.