Hi, I have several many-to-many relationships like Contacts and Tasks where I use a help table ContactsTasks to add the relationships. AppSheet has created the List with Ref_Rows(). So far so good.
The problem is that it looks really nasty when I look at the relationships in a form, table, deck or detail view. It does not look OK and it’s very difficult to follow the logics. Also, I have to create a new record (ie. Contact) then save it and then go back to add the relationship, which is awkward.
Any help to make this more streamlined and best practice would highly appreciated.
UX & data design go hand-in-hand; if the UX of the how things are presented is rough, then the interaction with the software will be rough - and consequently people believe the software is crap.
It’s all about cleaning up the system views so they look how you want.
Also, if you have the “Is A Part Of” turned on, then you’ll see these related fields INSIDE the form. To hide this, inside the show if formula for the [Related Whatever] columns use something like this:
CONTEXT(“ViewType”) <> “Form”
That will hide the column from view while inside any form view, but will remain visible elsewhere.
Many times when I create a system that has many-to-many connections, I’ll hide some of the connecting tables and just make sure that I manage updates/deletes/adds/etc. properly so I don’t have any leftovers or anything when things are deleted or whatever.
In regards to helping smooth out some interaction flow; take a look at the articles below. You can smooth some of this out by making use of LINKTOFORM() to prepopulate some data; also de-references could help to pull data (like corresponding reference links) from one layer to another; and finally event actions are really what makes all this work.
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@HCF
Can you post a couple of screenshots regarding the awkwardness? Thnx.
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Thanks and to late - I managed to clean up the mess. Works as a charm now
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