Best Practice - Related field vs Actual field

Question

Looking for some input/recommendations/suggestions on what would be considered "best practice" for the following scenario.I have a Clients table and it is related to the Contacts table as follows:Client < ContactsWhen I input a new Contact via the contact form, there are two fields I can have in the Contact form from the Clients table to represent the Client Name. However, I am not sure which field I should use as best practice. The fields are:

Related Client
Client Name

When looking at the fields within the Contacts  table, the Related Client is a numeric type, while Client Name is a text type.If I understand this all correctly, the Related Client is a reference back to the Record ID# in the Client Table; whereas the Client Name is a Lookup Field where the Reference field is the Related Client and the value presented is the Client Name.However, I have noticed that I can change the Default Record picker values for the Clients table such that the Related Client shows the Client Name, rather than a numeric value.So which is best practice? I would think that I should use the Client Name rather than the Related Client, but is there a Good vs Best way of doing this?Again, just looking for some clarification on best practice. Thanks!------------------------------Andrewandrew.fry25@gmail.com------------------------------

MarkShnierYou · Answer

np,Proxy Fields to the rescue.There is absolutely a best practice here in fact it is such a best practice it is actually the only practice. The magic here is to look at the relationship and you will see that you anchor the relationship on the right side of the Relationship is [Related Client]. That is a number and it is a meaningless number to users so what do you want on the form is someone to represent that related client field but it's a little better dressed and better looking. So you edit the field properties of related client and you select a proxy field of Client Name. &#30;Then what you do is you always use client name on your reports and on any forms and the magic is that when you edit a form there is a Jekyll and Hyde behaviour of that Proxy field and when you are in edit mode on the form it will behave as [related client] but still will disguise that number from ever being made visible to your users.  In fact if you were in edit mode on the form and you right click on the field name for client name, you will see that in fact in edit mode it is actually related client. But it never reveals that to the user.------------------------------Mark Shnier (YQC)Quick Base Solution ProviderYour Quick Base Coachhttp://QuickBaseCoach.commark.shnier@gmail.com------------------------------

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