Layout that uses more than one form

[Rebecca Kayne]

Hi, I’m new to Tap Forms and hope someone can help. I have two forms – a Customer form containing customer name and address and a second form for Customer Orders, which will have many records for each customer. They are linked by a join on a unique customer field that appears in both forms and this seems to be working well. I did this instead of using a One to Many because I wanted the the records to link automatically rather than having to use the check mark to select the records. This is all fine so far.

Here’s my problem. I want to create a layout that allows me to print out a Customer Order, but also include the address information from my Customer form. Is this possible? Thanks!

[Brendan]

Hi Rebecca,

So the issue is that a Join Link Type is treated like an automated many-to-many relationship. That means that the parent and child records are both displayed as tables because there can be more than one parent for each child and each parent can have more than one child.

At the moment it would seem the only solution would be to put the address also on the Customer Order form. I know that defeats the purpose of what you’re trying to do.

What you would need is some way of picking out a particular parent linked record from the child record in order to display that. In my next update of Tap Forms I’m adding a new Scripting function which will let you write some JavaScript to extract data from records and return that to the Script field. It’s just like a Calculation field, but much more powerful. So that might work for you actually. Because with that you would be able to pick out just one parent record and then return a concatenated string of the address values to display.

[Rebecca Kayne]

Hi Brendan, thanks so much for replying. I know you’ve said the only way to do it is to also include the address on the customer order form, but can you help me understand a little more about what’s going on?

The parent and child records seem to be linking correctly using the Join Link. I can see all the information I want in the default layout, but when I try to create a print layout, the linked form just appears as a box that literally just says ‘Customers’. I also tried creating another pair of tables using a One-to-Many link but that doesn’t seem to work any better. I’ve attached some screen shots. (This is all test data, by the way)

I’m also wondering if there is any way to create a unique or key field in a form that would prevent duplicate records?

Thanks again!

[Brendan]

Hi Rebecca,

I would suggest deleting that Customers box and then drag it back in from the Fields list at the bottom right. It could be like that due to changing field types at some point after you dragged that in there.

When you drag the Customers Link From Field into your custom layout, it should appear in a tabular format because it’s the inverse of the Join Link Type field.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Rebecca Kayne]

Hi Brendan, thanks for the suggestion. I tried it but it didn’t make any difference.

Thanks very much for your help.

Rebecca

[Brendan]

Ok, try that one more time, but before you do that, turn off the “Show Inverse Relationship” checkbox button, then turn it back on again right away. Then drag the field back into the layout. That’ll cause Tap Forms to recreate the Link From Form field. The inverse of a Join Link Type should definitely display in a tabular format.

[Rebecca Kayne]

Hi Brendan, I followed your instructions above but it’s still the same. It displays in tabular format in the default layout but shows only an empty box in the print layout.

Thanks,
Rebecca

[Brendan]

Hi Rebecca,

Can you please email me a backup of your document so I can get to the bottom of this for you?

Send it to support@tapforms.com

Thanks,

Brendan

[Pat Cliffe]

I have been forced down the route of using Tap Forms (and learning very quickly) at a very late stage of running an event, due to out of date software problems. So I have transferred my Bento database to Tap forms on an imac, and I have one database with three layouts. I want to use one of the layouts on the ipad, as it contains only certain records, and then synch the databases later with the computer version. I can’t see the layouts on the ipad, only the whole database with all fields. Is there anything I am missing?

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[Brendan]

Hi Pat,

Custom layouts are not available on the iOS version at the moment. The iOS versions display what is essentially the Default Layout with all fields from the Mac version.

Sorry about that.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Pat Cliffe]

Hi Brendan
Thanks for the prompt reply. Is there something I can do on the ipad to give people access only to certain records that they have to fill in. We are running a contest and some of the fields are filled in by the registration team and others by the adjudicator, who doesn’t know who the band is ( he is adjudicating blind)- he completes comment and score fields.
I would prefer to make is as simple as possible for the registration team and not present them with all of the fields.
Pat

[Brendan]

The only thing you could do would be to put some of the fields beneath Section Heading fields and collapse those fields before you give the iPads to the adjudicator. But that wouldn’t stop them from tapping on the section heading field to view the fields within it though. I just haven’t written any code to hide fields like that. Sorry.

[Pat Cliffe]

I can do that. You have a year to sort it before we do this again!!! Thanks.

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