Forum Discussion

BenjaminGolden's avatar
BenjaminGolden
Qrew Cadet
6 years ago

Type and Copy Values, what does it even do?

Long story short, I've got an automation meant to add a series of child records to a parent record which each also have a parent record from a separate table. The parent table, "Schedules," contains a list of child "Shifts," which look up a day of the week and shift number from the parent table "Punch Pairs." For example, an employee may have a shift for Monday 1, Tuesday 1, etc. The automation in question is meant to add shifts for each day of the week for a given shift number.

Basically, I want to see if I can figure out how "Both Type and Copy Values" works, because a lot of QB's own resources seem to have no helpful information on it. Currently it doesn't seem like it works as far as using formulas (such as adding 3 or concatenating part of a string to a trigger value) nor does it seem to work as simply part of a string, and it doesn't seem like proxy fields really work at all in these automations. So, what use is the both type and copy values option?

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Ben Golden
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  • MarkShnier__You's avatar
    MarkShnier__You
    Icon for Qrew Legend rankQrew Legend
    6 years ago
    The option to type and copy values would allow you to write into a field like

    The rain in Spain falls mainly in the [Country], and the Automation will fill in the name of the country when it writes out the record. I have never actually fund that to be useful. 

    Perhaps you can describe what you are trying to do and we can help.

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    Mark Shnier (YQC)
    Quick Base Solution Provider
    Your Quick Base Coach
    http://QuickBaseCoach.com
    markshnier2@gmail.com
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    • BenjaminGolden's avatar
      BenjaminGolden
      Qrew Cadet
      6 years ago
      Hi Mark,

      Here's the current relationship diagram for the app
      Basically, I have an automation that triggers when a user provides a particular input (i.e. selecting a shift number from a list under the Default Shift field). Each Punch Pair has a day of the week and a number indicating when a given shift should stop and start (Monday 1 starts at 7:00 and ends at 15:00 (military time), Monday 2 starts at 15:00 and ends at 23:00, Tuesday 1 starts at 7:00 and ends at 15:00, etc. etc.). When the user selects the number 1 for Default Shift in a Schedule and saves the record, the automation clears the child Shifts and should add a new shift for each weekday (e.g. Monday 1, Tuesday 1, Wednesday 1). Note that in Shifts, the Related Punch Pair has a proxy field, Name, which consists of the day of the week and number written as listed. So, this is how I've been trying to add said shifts (one for each day of the week):

      Now, the interesting thing here is that, when typing it like this, instead finding the related punch pair using the proxy field "Tuesday 2", for example, it will find the punch pair with a record ID of 2. And it does do this as well when typing "Tuesday 2" manually as a value. So working with proxy fields at all may be out of the question; at this point the best thing I can think of is creating a few new fields (and possibly more automation steps) to try and juggle values around so the RID of the correct punch pair can get copied in.


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      Benjamin Golden
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      • BenjaminGolden's avatar
        BenjaminGolden
        Qrew Cadet
        6 years ago
        Or, of course, making a separate Automation for each shift number. It feels like not the best practice but it's quick and works.

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        Benjamin Golden
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