I would consider this an imperfect solution, but as an interim solution I have done this:
I have created a second field in cables called "Alternative Filter" which I made a text field 'from another field', pointing at the "Items: WiredBy Concat" field. Hence if the work package filter doesn't match one of the items associated with this cable "usually in the case of an electrical panel where multiple work packages are wiring devices to that panel", the user can select an alternative filter.
I then have a background field I've called "Selected Filter" which is equal to the work package dropdown if the alternative filter field is empty, otherwise it is equal to the alternative filter. It is this selected filter field to which I have changed the Conditional value filtering of the items dropdown.
I then have a sanity check row highlighting set in the standard cables report, where the record will be highlighted if the work package filter for that cable is not contained in the text of the "WiredBy Concat" of each of the associated items. So that sanity check won't raise issue when those values aren't equal, but it will raise an issue where it's not ONE of the associated packages for that item.
As I said, I'd consider this imperfect as the user will have to use a second dropdown when the first dropdown isn't appropriate. That said, in Grid edit, once the user has used that alternative filter once to at least "find" the item in question, they can copy/paste/fill down perfectly fine.
And one could argue this is at least better than what we had previously. Which was, for example let's say "Panel 1" is wired by multiple work packages. We would hence need to have multiple items named "Panel 1", each with the different required work package. That meant that in the Cables table, if you saw the item text "Panel 1" you didn't know which of the Item records named "Panel 1" that actually was. We also had logic to prevent duplicate tags that basically had to then be circumvented to allow the duplicate panel tags in this case, which was messy.
Anyway, if someone has a better solution I'd welcome it. There have been many times in managing quickbase apps that I've wanted Conditional Value Filtering in relationships to be able to be logical comparisons other than x=y (contains, greater than, less than, etc). And as an extension of that I've thought the idea of relational summary fields for text values (aka a concatenate summary field of text values) would be very helpful many times. I have a workaround for that one which I got off this forum, but a concatenate summary field would be far more elegant.
Thanks for reading my ramblings,
Leith
