How do I delete a sub-set of records from a connected table?

Question

I have a large number of records that I've imported into a table over a long period of time via the connected tables option (with the add, update, but do not remove option set) and now no longer need to reference some of the older data that was imported. I'd like to delete these older records in order to avoid issues with running out of space, but it seems I'm unable to do so.

I've checked that I'm in an Administrator role and that I have the green checkmark next to 'delete' for the table I'm looking at.

What I tried to do was to filter only the items I wanted to delete in a report, click grid edit, highlight the row, right click and select "delete record". When I do this though, I get an error message that says "You do not have permission to delete items".

This was the guide I followed:
http://help.quickbase.com/user-assistance/deleting_multiple_records.html

Is there anything else I need to enable as permission on my role to delete accounts? Could the use of a connected table be not allowing me to remove records for some reason?

BONUS QUESTION: Assuming I can somehow delete records, is there a more efficient way to delete multiple records can highlighting multiple rows via grid edit? I have ~10k records that I'd like to remove...

quickbasecoachd · Answer

You cannot add or delete records manually on a connected table.

So your choices are to either change the source table (if that is possible) and delete them there or to adjust the filter. For example, if you change the filter to match the source records exactly, and filter the old records out, then the old records should delete. In the next refresh.

quickbasecoachd · Answer

To answer your Bonus question, if this was not a connect table, you would make a report of the records to be deleted and then use the More ... button at the top right to see an option to delete all the records on that report.

bobjordan · Answer

Hmm, ok so a little extra work may be needed here.

My understanding is that QB sync operations are limited to ~25MB files though correct? If I re-compile all the data I need manually into a single csv, it comes out to ~40MB.

So I suppose what I could do is:
1. split the csv into 2 files
2. sync the first file with the "add, update, and remove" setting selected in order to match the csv exactly
3. sync the second file with the "add, update, but do not remove" setting selected

Can you see any problems arising with that approach? I really don't want to mess anything up in the database and wiping all the newer records makes me a bit nervous.

Thanks for the reply!

quickbasecoachd · Answer

You may be perfectly correct, but let me ask some questions. I'm not aware of a 25 MB limit for Sync files. Do you recall why you think that?

If you split the file in half, why is it that you would set the Sync settings differently for the 2nd half - your Step 3.

bobjordan · Answer

Well I noticed some special conditions discussed for 25MB files here: http://www.quickbase.com/downloads/sync/QuickBase_Sync_for_Cloud_Apps.pdf
Additionally in my own use of it, I noticed that I kept getting substantially more errors in the sync operation as the file size was closer to 25MB (operation time out errors and spools failing).

For the file split, my thought of changing the settings is so that the table in QB retains all the data. Meaning that the first half of the import would basically wipe the DB and make it match that first half of the CSV while the second half would simply append to it on the table without removing anything (essentially re-combining the file prior to the split).

If you believe the split may not even be necessary though, then that might save some work.

Forum Discussion

How do I delete a sub-set of records from a connected table?

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