Use an embedded form to take attendance
Hello! I'm looking for a way to allow my users to "take attendance" after they host large events. I currently have a working solution for small events*, BUT I really want to provide an easy way t...
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Thanks very much for your response, Mark! I came up with a solution last night that goes down a similar path as what you've described, but your outline is very helpful! Thank you!
Hi Chyanne, It's been a while since your post but I wonder if you could show me how you solved this. I have a very similar attendance situation.
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Gerardo Chacon
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Hi Gerardo - Let me see if I can assist!
What really helped me solve this was mapping out the relationships in my app. The key relationships were between three tables - Events, Attendance, and Employees. I wanted a user to create one event using a form, fill in a check-box next to the name of Employees in an embedded report, and then I wanted the system to, invisible to the user, create an Attendance record through a QuickBase action.
Here's what worked for me:
I set up a form for a user to create an Event. They fill out the form and then they click a "Next" button to go to a second page of the form. This button is what enables everything else - I used Kirk Tracy's magic buttons app in the exchange and met with him in office hours. The Next button relies on a codepage that is modeled after something I believe is called createsavecontinue.html in the Magic buttons app. (The key is that the button saves the new record and then sets the user up to keep editing the record in a way that seems seamless.)
This next button looks to the user like it directs to a second page, but it actually directs to a different form in the same table. This "page 2" form includes an embedded report from the Employees table. I set criteria to filter the employees based on the Event record being edited. The embedded report is basically a list of people and a check-box to indicate whether or not they attended.
When a check-box is clicked, it means the Employee record is being modified. I set up a QuickBase action to fire when a user modifies an Employee record, specifically when the "attended" check-box is filled. The QuickBase action then creates a new record in the Attendance table. The fields that this Quickbase action copies to a new impact record are identified thanks a special field Date/Time of Last Click on Next in Event Form. This is a field that basically identifies the last record edited.
To avoid the "attended" check-box staying filled in for employees, I have another QuickBase action that fires to uncheck the field Attended?
I hope this might offer some helpful clues to you!
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Chyanne
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