Forum Discussion
Laura_Thacker
6 years agoQrew Commander
I think you could simplify this by doing the following:
1. Your first "summary" field to get your Record ID# to give you the last-Case date that was entered before the Training Advice was given would be setup as follows:
Summarize the MAXIMUM [Record ID#] when [Date of Case] is before the date in the field [Date of Training Advice]
Use this summary-field value as the formula-value in your reverse-relationship to identify the information from the last-case entry before training.
2. Your second Summary field to get your Record ID# to give you the first-Case date after the training advice was given would be setup as follows:
Summarize the MINIMUM [Record ID#] when [Date of Case] is after the date in the field [Date of Training Advice]
Use this summary-field value as the formula-value in your reverse-relationship to identify the information from the first-case AFTER training advice.
Remember that ALL your Cases must be connected to the Training Advice Record. Your workflow description suggested that Cases would be entered before Training Advice was given; and so I wonder what process you have for ensuring that existing Cases are assigned to a new Training Advice entry.
If you pull your summary fields as Record ID#s rather than "dates" you may find this yields more accurate results.
Did you know about the new Summary Combined Text Field? This has solved a lot of need for reverse relationships. You can summarize text data values (unique ones) from child-record data without having to physically build the reverse relationship itself. You will still need the summary fields to determine the Record ID#s to pull the data from; but you do not necessarily need the whole relationship connection. You often then have to convert the summary-combined-text-fields into Formula-Text fields for readability though.
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Laura Thacker (IDS)
laura@intelligentdbs.com
(626) 771 0454
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1. Your first "summary" field to get your Record ID# to give you the last-Case date that was entered before the Training Advice was given would be setup as follows:
Summarize the MAXIMUM [Record ID#] when [Date of Case] is before the date in the field [Date of Training Advice]
Use this summary-field value as the formula-value in your reverse-relationship to identify the information from the last-case entry before training.
2. Your second Summary field to get your Record ID# to give you the first-Case date after the training advice was given would be setup as follows:
Summarize the MINIMUM [Record ID#] when [Date of Case] is after the date in the field [Date of Training Advice]
Use this summary-field value as the formula-value in your reverse-relationship to identify the information from the first-case AFTER training advice.
Remember that ALL your Cases must be connected to the Training Advice Record. Your workflow description suggested that Cases would be entered before Training Advice was given; and so I wonder what process you have for ensuring that existing Cases are assigned to a new Training Advice entry.
If you pull your summary fields as Record ID#s rather than "dates" you may find this yields more accurate results.
Did you know about the new Summary Combined Text Field? This has solved a lot of need for reverse relationships. You can summarize text data values (unique ones) from child-record data without having to physically build the reverse relationship itself. You will still need the summary fields to determine the Record ID#s to pull the data from; but you do not necessarily need the whole relationship connection. You often then have to convert the summary-combined-text-fields into Formula-Text fields for readability though.
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Laura Thacker (IDS)
laura@intelligentdbs.com
(626) 771 0454
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- LauraMcFeely6 years agoQrew CadetThanks so much, Laura!
I like your idea to simplify, but I think your way would rely on cases always being entered chronologically in terms of when they happened, and therefore Record IDs always being in order from smallest (earliest date) to largest (latest date). Unfortunately, we can't rely on that -- we sometimes find out about cases months after they happened, which is why I built it on Date rather than Record ID#.
I'm not seeing how your summary field for the first case after receiving advice is different from mine, other than being based on Record ID#. For some reason, summarizing by the minimum [Date of Case] when [Date of Case] is after the date in the field [Date of Teaching Advice] is not working.
I did not know about the new Summary Combined Text Field! That's very interesting, and could be really helpful. I'll play around with it and see how I can use it.
Thanks again!- Laura_Thacker6 years agoQrew CommanderIf you would like to jump on a call with me, I will try to help you fix the problem with # 5 of your existing setup then.
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Laura Thacker (IDS)
laura@intelligentdbs.com
(626) 771 0454
------------------------------ - Laura_Thacker6 years agoQrew CommanderI replicated your two date summary fields and got results on both ends; so a possible reason why step 5 is returning en empty result is if the Case is not actually connected to the Training Advice.
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Laura Thacker (IDS)
laura@intelligentdbs.com
(626) 771 0454
------------------------------- LauraMcFeely6 years agoQrew CadetHi Laura,
Thanks so much for taking the time to test this out, and for helping me think this through. After a good night's sleep, I realized that you're right, of course: I need to connect the cases to the training advice, which is the crucial thing. After thinking about this, I think that the complication of connecting them is ultimately not worth the slight increase in convenience.
So I'm sorry for wasting your time, but I appreciate that you helped me figure out why it's not worth it!
Laura