Best Practice - Related field vs Actual field
Looking for some input/recommendations/suggestions on what would be considered "best practice" for the following scenario. I have a Clients table and it is related to the Contacts table as follows:...
Forum Discussion
MarkShnier__You
Qrew Legend
Qrew Legendnp,
Proxy Fields to the rescue.
There is absolutely a best practice here in fact it is such a best practice it is actually the only practice. The magic here is to look at the relationship and you will see that you anchor the relationship on the right side of the Relationship is [Related Client].
That is a number and it is a meaningless number to users so what do you want on the form is someone to represent that related client field but it's a little better dressed and better looking. So you edit the field properties of related client and you select a proxy field of Client Name.
Then what you do is you always use client name on your reports and on any forms and the magic is that when you edit a form there is a Jekyll and Hyde behaviour of that Proxy field and when you are in edit mode on the form it will behave as [related client] but still will disguise that number from ever being made visible to your users. In fact if you were in edit mode on the form and you right click on the field name for client name, you will see that in fact in edit mode it is actually related client. But it never reveals that to the user.
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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.com
mark.shnier@gmail.com
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Proxy Fields to the rescue.
There is absolutely a best practice here in fact it is such a best practice it is actually the only practice. The magic here is to look at the relationship and you will see that you anchor the relationship on the right side of the Relationship is [Related Client].
That is a number and it is a meaningless number to users so what do you want on the form is someone to represent that related client field but it's a little better dressed and better looking. So you edit the field properties of related client and you select a proxy field of Client Name.
Then what you do is you always use client name on your reports and on any forms and the magic is that when you edit a form there is a Jekyll and Hyde behaviour of that Proxy field and when you are in edit mode on the form it will behave as [related client] but still will disguise that number from ever being made visible to your users. In fact if you were in edit mode on the form and you right click on the field name for client name, you will see that in fact in edit mode it is actually related client. But it never reveals that to the user.
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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.com
mark.shnier@gmail.com
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Fantastic! Thanks a ton Mark. I had in fact already noticed that in Edit mode, the Related Client is present, but masked as the Client Name.
I guess that is what was throwing me off as in some modes it was Client Name, but in other (e.g. Edit), it was Related Client.
Your explanation makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
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Andrew
andrew.fry25@gmail.com
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I guess that is what was throwing me off as in some modes it was Client Name, but in other (e.g. Edit), it was Related Client.
Your explanation makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
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Andrew
andrew.fry25@gmail.com
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