I hope this post be useful to developers looking to update text and date values on another table when gathering the information from a form filled by a user.
The record created with the form (child:“Activite”) knows the record ID for which values will be updated (parent:“Adresse”).
Step 1 /6
Create the form to create Activite. 3 value will be updated. The “Activité”, the “Date activite” and a hidden (hidden not only on the image) status value.
Step 2 /6
Create an action on the parent Adresse which calls the form on the child Activite. Many values are initialized in the process.
LINKTOFORM(“Activite_Form No Statut”,“ID Adresse”,[_THISROW],“Statut”,“Nouveau”,“Priorite”,“1”,“Activite”,“Rencontrer”,“Duree”,“1:00:00”,“Personne Participante”,“Oui”)
This is possibly an optional step. It is only a logical way to create the child in my case scenario.
Step 3 /6
Create the action on the parent Adresse that set input values. The best way to this step is by first creating the input values in the Advanced section which will naturally auto-filled when writting [_INPUT]… above in the Set these colums section.
The input default value should be used when no value is provided during the process. So, the default value is used when the form passes no value (I guess using blank “” in the form counts as a value). That said, I experienced many unexplained problems when trying to use something other than “” as a default value or when changing the order of the passed values or passing a date value which makes no sense (as said above… unexplained problems). In the end, it worked but I am nervous it could break if I touch it in the future.
Note that the input name is for reference only within Appsheet.
Step 4 /6
Create an action on the child Activite that calls the action on the parent Adressse which sets input values. Each input value is set with the related form field. Since the parent is unique LIST([ID Adresse]) should work but, I used SELECT(Adresse[ID Adresse],[_THISROW].[ID Adresse]=[ID Adresse]) at the end while trying to solve problematic behaviors.
Step 5 /6
Finally, create a bot that acts when a child records Activite, which is added using the form. This calls the parent action that sets input values. Define in the same order and set input values in the With these inputs section when you use the default Custom action in the step selector but if you select the action you created earlier you have nothing more to do.
This post helps me to remember how I did it and hopefully, it will save me hours trying to figure this out again in the future.
Let me know if this is useful to you.