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GraesenArnoff's avatar
GraesenArnoff
Qrew Member
11 months ago

Need help setting up relationship between courses and instructors

I'm new to QB, but have attended some live virtual trainings and explored my new employer's current setup of QB.

What we're trying to accomplish is:
We have many training courses in one table. We have many instructors in another table. We'd like to identify instructors as being qualified to teach select courses. One instructor could be linked to dozens of courses. One course could have dozens of instructors. 

When I try to make a relationship between the two tables as it is, I seem to only be able to assign 1 instructor per course or vice-versa (depending what I choose as the parent). 

What am I missing?



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Graesen Arnoff
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3 Replies

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  • AdamKeever1's avatar
    AdamKeever1
    Qrew Commander
    11 months ago

    @Graesen Arnoff , for this you need what is often called a 'join table'. You could call it 'course instructors' or 'instructor courses' or something along those lines.

    One 'course instructors' will have many 'courses' in one relationship and will have many 'instructors' in another relationship.



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    Adam Keever
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    • GraesenArnoff's avatar
      GraesenArnoff
      Qrew Member
      11 months ago

      Thanks. That's exactly what I needed. It wasn't intuitive that this was necessary, but it appears to be doing what I need. 



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      Graesen Arnoff
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      • BrianSeymour's avatar
        BrianSeymour
        Qrew Cadet
        11 months ago

        I agree with @adam. That's called a many-to-many relationship, but since Quickbase only let's us define a one-to-many relationship, you accomplish this by creating two one-to-many relationships using a third table in the "middle." Often that table is called a join or pivot table. Then, on the Instructors table, you can have an embedded report (via a Report Link field) that lists the courses they are eligible to teach.

        Oftentimes, you may want to store start and end dates on the pivot table as well, since the Instructor may not teach the given courses indefinitely. That way you can track history over time.



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        Brian Seymour
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