How to get round having a field from a different relationship inside a Portal

[GrantSymon]

Hi,

I've built a new system based entirely on relationships so I'm never actually working directly on a record ... it's always via relationships. I've come across what is probably a design problem ... and I'm far far down the road with my files, so HELP!

I have a Contacts file in which I view lists on the right side of my monitor via a Portal (I have about 6 portals, 1 each in a Tabbed window) then on the left side, I have fields based on a different relationship from the portals and I use a global 'setField' (set by a script on the portal row) so that I see the data on the left, related to the portal row on the right when I click on the portal row. This works well. (The data showing up in the Portal rows resides *inside* the Contacts table!)

I've also got Companies table. The company's addresses are viewed on the *same layout as the Contacts* on the lefthand side via a different relationship again and equally ... this works fine. (So I can change a company's address and it changes for everyone associated with that company).

The problem I have, is that in the Portal rows (showing data from the Contacts file) I would like to also see the company name ... you guessed it ... from the Companies file.

Question :

Is there any way to have data from one file, show up in a Portal which is based on a self-relate from another file?

If not ... and I fear the answer is no ... how do you suggest I work around this problem ?

Many thanks for any/all help ... I'm pretty stumped on this.

Grant

[Vaughan]

Try "pipelining" the data across: create an unstored calculation field in the intermediate table.

[GrantSymon]

Hi Vaughan,

thanks for the reply.

I've got the pipelining thing working (simple once you know ) So thanks for that. Sadly, I've now run up against, what seems to be a harder problem, along the same lines, having one portal basing a relationship on data from 2 separate tables. Uugh.

I've started a new thread :

"Create relationship from separated data?"

since this one is resolved (thanks again!)

Grant

[comment]

In general, pipelining is not required in version 7 and above. You can place the field from the Companies table directly into the portal. It will show data from the first related record in Companies, evaluated from the context of the Contact record in each portal row.

[Fenton]

I would agree with comment, that you probably don't need a calculated field to show the Company. If however your portal's relationship is targetting a TO of Contacts that does not have a connected Company's TO, then you might need to add one, hanging off the end. Which method is better; 6 of one, half-dozen of the other, as they say.

As to your 2nd problem, filtering data with a key based on 2 tables, that is probably possible also. There are 2 methods I know of. The 1st is to create an unstored calculation field. with a result of the related KEY that would be needed, getting this value from a relationship to the 3rd table, then adding that key to the originating side of the relationship.

In this case you do need a local calculation field, because only local fields can be specified as relational keys. They do not have to be stored keys however, not on the originating side. So referencing a field in another table is possible.

If there is no possible relationship to the 3rd table, then you might have to set a global field to populate that added key. But usually there is a possible relationship, because there should be some logical connection to the data.

I'm better at doing this when I have the thing in front of me however. Otherwise it's all kind of abstract.