'Aggregating' text data from Portal

[webko]

I've got a list of television broadcasts, with a parent Programs table - I can view the related Broadcasts of a given Program.

Now I want to aggregate the Broadcast channels, dates and times to a field in the Parent record - aggregated by Channel. I can obviously produce a List fairly easily, but given the child data:

Channel Date Time
TEN 11/11/2015 14:30
TEN 11/11/2015 16:30
"TEN + 2" 11/11/2015 16:30
TEN 13/11/2015 08:30
TEN 15/11/2015 10:30

I would love a result like:

TEN, 11/11/2015, 14:30, 11/11/2015, 16:30, 13/11/2015, 08:30, 15/11/2015, 10:30
TEN + 2, 11/11/2015, 16:30

Note: The data-set can be sorted by any/all of the three fields.

CustomFunction? Calculation? Script?

Cheers

Webko

[comment]

These two don't go together:

I can view the related Broadcasts of a given Program.

 

...

Note: The data-set can be sorted by any/all of the three fields.

If you are viewing this from a layout of Programs, then the sort order is given by the sort order of the relationship (or portal) and cannot be changed at will. It would be different if you were producing this as a report from the Broadcasts table - but in order to aggregate by Channel, the records would have to be sorted by Channel first. If you do that, you would only need a sublist of the (calculated) timestamps,

I would also ask why you need this. If (as I suspect) this is for export, then my answer will be very different.

[webko]

For the first, I'm suggesting that, if required, I can change the sort order(s) of the Relationship / Portal.

And you're correct, the final stage will be an export. 

However, for administrative purposes, the end users need to be able to see a version on screen before the final export. So they can see the final information and make sure it's what they want (as there are other rules around which Broadcasts are meant to show in the final export...)

Actually, just through this conversation - I think I should be able to use a Virtual List and construct the Broadcast Channel / Date / Time information there for viewing, and then export...

Thank you

[comment]

For the first, I'm suggesting that, if required, I can change the sort order(s) of the Relationship / Portal.

I am not entirely with you on this. If you insist on seeing this in a layout of Programs, I suggest you look at the demo posted here:

However, doing this as report from the Broadcasts table would be simpler - especially if you want finer control over which broadcasts to include (since a portal is not subject to find).

 

Edited October 26, 2015 by comment