Reporting a string of child relationships

[Aussie John]

Hi 

I have a DB where I have a string of Relationships with tables as follows: Room Type>>Room Name>>Equipment in room. There will always be a Room type and always at least one Room Name but not always a piece of Equipment in the room. 

The tidiest way I have found to report this is from the Equipment table and use field sliding to remove potentially large areas of blank as Equipment detail varies significantly can be very detailed and may include photographs and special additional detail and notes, but without a piece of equipment in a room the reporting misses that room (and room type). I am currently resorting to using a dummy equipment record.

So, Ideally I would like to report using the room name table but as Portal sliding options are limited and making a list of equipment would also not be good as there are many different field types to report on and seems overly complicated.

Any suggestions and Thanks in advance.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Aussie John

[rwoods]

In my experience, if you want to use sliding then you have to base the reporting layout on the entity that has varying amounts of data. In the case you describe, that is exactly what you are doing.

However, it sounds like you are trying to create a report of 'rooms', rather than of 'equipment', hence you are correct that creating an 'Empty' or 'Dummy' piece of equipment for rooms that have no equipment seems like the best option. Is there actually a problem with that method? It could be that you have the solution already.

I can't think of a better way to solve your problem, since as you say, portal rows are of a fixed size, and I don't know of a way around that.

Maybe someone else has solved this problem a different way, I'm sure they will contribute if so!

[Aussie John]

Thanks - I have decided to report by rooms and have a separate report for equipment. Not ideal but probably the best.