Why Draw in Parent Fields in to a Child Record using a Knack Database App?
Updated: Jun 18
Sometimes you want a value in a parent records to be present, natively, in child records too. Some Knack database app functions only allow access to native fields (fields that are part of the child table itself). These include sorting, display rules, emails, and others. Here I give you the lowdown on this topic ...check it out. Thanks!
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Full Transcript
I'm doing another
video if you like these please
like it on YouTube subscribe to my
channel too please uh today's topic
let me grab it
why draw in a parent field into a child
record Knack database app
in my last video I was talking
about conditional rules and using text
formulas or other things to draw on
values natively because there's some
cases where you want that to happen so I
thought I'd explain that a little more
this won't be long I'm just going to
give a few examples
um but let's go for it thanks
thank you
okay here's the lowdown let's get this
started
I'm just going to talk about some
examples what you're looking at here let
me make myself smaller
it's the back end but it's an invoicing
system so here up top we have
information about the invoice
and if you know anything about invoices
I have video on that too
what you're going to do
is to an invoice you're going to add a
line item
and then each of these are expense items
and they're
the expensive build against something
but I'm going to give you an example
here you may have a date related or a status
related to the invoice overall
and there's lots of cases where you want
that date and that status to also apply
to the line items itself
now you can make a view when you're
building all your pages and draw it in
from the parent but there's
a number of times and I'll give you an
example sometimes in these invoicing
things we do a view that is all expense
line items and they may be grouped by invoice but
we want we want the date to we have to
start with a table of line items
so here's the deal with date on any
table if we wanted to sort those by
date like through source
and through sort
this sort function only uses native
fields so if we wanted to sort them by the line
item not not buy the the invoice we
would want to go use uh we could use an
equation field
put it natively into meaning over here
when we're at line items
we could draw it in and say whatever
the invoices date is make the line items
date that too
and there's so it's always going to
be whatever it is
I'm going to give you another example
back to this page
something else could happen too if we're
if we edit have the ability to edit the
invoice and we want to change a date on
that if it's connected through an equation
that will automatically apply
to all the child line item records so
you don't have to make a bunch of record
rules to capture things
um I'm gonna give you another example in
this case with invoices the invoice has
a status
invoice status so let's just say it's
paid or not paid on every whatever they are
here's another typical one where
whatever the invoice overall invoice is
status you want to have a matching field
down here that is connected to it via
likely a text formula so every single
there might be several line items for
one invoice will always have the same
status as whatever you've set the
invoice so you set the status once to
allowance paid let's say
you don't have to do it through record
rules you could but it's more tedious
building out if you make every line on
them like this and then here's what the
deal with statuses and a lot of these
things uh once it as that's it is at
some status let's say it's just under
review there's there's draft it's
submitted for review and that's paid
once it's submitted you do not want them
making changes to an invoice that you're
now reviewing because it doesn't make
sense here's what I got let's see what
how we're going to review it they can't
be changing at Mid so whoever's making
these invoices you want to not be able
to change it so if you're drawing the
status natively I'm going to give you
this edit when you edit a particular field
there's something called display rules
and this this example if the payment status is
paid the value means it's going to hide edit
so they have no longer are able to edit
it and you could do the same thing with
the ability to delete here
a similar type of thing where you're
you're making some value
in the parent record that applies to all
the child records so because these
display rules only use stuff that's
native so you want to get it down if
you're the parent you want to get it
down as easily and consistently as
possible into the child record without
you having to do a bunch of stuff
and another thing too is uh
let's let's go to let me find it here no
uh let's just do an edit form this isn't
a specific thing emails
when you have emails
when you want to select fields to put in
here they only allow you to have native
Fields you don't see any connection
stuff here so you're depending on the UK
use case I'm not even going to give an
example if you have a piece of content
that you want in the email this could be
done here or through tasks the two
places you do emails
um you want to draw it in natively so
again I have videos on that but you're
either going to use
you're going to put the field first
into the child record let's just say
this is line items you're gonna put the
field in here you can either do it
through a text formula
depending on what it is
or an equation that just grabs a value
and they're going to only let you get
certain things the equation is not going
to let you get a text
um or you can create record rules which
is a little more tedious but sometimes
you might want to do that
that's what I got these are real typical
things that I always use to draw in
natively and I'm sure there's a bunch of
others and Native when I say that means
it exists here on its own it's not
something you can go grab
in the table itself it exists
it doesn't it's not on a Pages side where I I can
go grab a parent value or I can do it
the other way around too and just drop
it in and then it works when you're
looking at your app but there's cases
where it has to be present and this is
what I'm talking about with this video
that's what I got today thanks