Link one Object to another

An Object is a kind of record your team defines, and an admin builds it in Settings › Objects. Start at What is an Object? if that is new to you. A Linked record is one of the field types you add there, and it is how one record points at another: a quality check that knows which production run it belongs to, a production run that knows which factory made it.

People pick from a real list instead of typing a name, so the value survives a rename, and the connection can be filtered, counted and totalled afterwards. This page covers which way round the link should point, how to add it, and what the record on the far end gets without you building anything there.

Before you start

You need to be an admin, because the field is added in Settings › Objects. Both sides of the link have to exist before you can join them, so if you are pointing at an Object you defined yourself, create it first. See Create an Object.

You can point at the records Tideswell already ships with as well as your own. Suppliers, Products, Purchase Orders, Customers and Orders are all offered in the same menu, so an Object you defined can point straight at the factory that made the goods. Decide between a built-in record and your own Object covers which of the two you should be using.

Which way round should the link go?

Put the field on the Object there are more of, pointing at the one there are fewer of. A quality check belongs to exactly one production run, so the field goes on Quality checks. Ten checks can then point at the same run, and the run lists all ten of them without you adding anything on that side.

Fairgreen Golf Co. defined two Objects of its own: Production runs, one per style per factory per season, and Quality checks, one per inspection.

The linked field lives on Quality checks and points at Production runs. Production runs in turn has its own linked field pointing at Suppliers, which is how each run knows its factory.

Decide the direction before you save, because which Object a linked field points at is fixed once the field exists. Plan your fields before you add them is worth four minutes before you start clicking, and it sets out what correcting one costs.

Add the linked field

1. Open Settings › Objects and click the Object that will hold the field. For Fairgreen that is Quality checks.
2. Press Add field and type the label, for example "Production run". Labels are fixed once saved, so use the words your team already says out loud.
3. Open the Type menu and pick Linked record, under the "Choices & links" heading.
4. In Points at, choose the Object this field points at.
5. In the box asking what the other Object calls these, type the name of the panel that will appear over there, for example "Quality checks".
6. Press Save field.

The field appears at the bottom of the field list. Move it up with the arrow buttons on its row if you want it near the top of the record form. Add a field and pick the right type explains the type menu in full.

What does the reverse view give you?

It gives the record on the far end a panel listing everything that points at it, under whatever name you typed. Open a Fairgreen production run and there is a "Quality checks" panel holding every check logged against that run, each one a link straight through to it. You add no field on that side to get this.

Name the panel in the plural and in your team's own words, because that name is what people read on the other record. If you leave the box empty, the field still works and people can still choose a production run; the run itself simply does not gather them into a panel.

You can change your mind later. The Reverse view button on the field's row reopens both the panel name and the one-per setting, at any time, without touching the field itself. How to link a record to work, and see what points at it shows what the panel looks like from the other side and how people work with it day to day.

Should you limit it to one per record?

Tick Only one per when the connection is genuinely one to one and a second one would be a mistake rather than a normal Tuesday. Fairgreen caps its Final inspections field at one per production run, so nobody can log two final inspections against the same run and leave two different verdicts on the record.

• Leave it clear when many are expected. Quality checks against a production run should be uncapped, because there are meant to be several.
• Tick it when a second link would be a duplicate. One compliance certificate per factory, one final inspection per run.
• The tick becomes available once the reverse view has a name, since the cap and the panel describe the same relationship from the two ends.

Once the cap is on, anyone linking a record is stopped at the moment they pick a target that is already taken, not later in a report nobody reads.

What if records already break the one-per rule?

You are told before anything changes. Switch the cap on and Tideswell checks the records already saved.

If any target is pointed at more than once, it lists the offending records by name and asks you to sort them out first. Nothing is saved until you do.

The list names up to twenty records, and tells you when there are more than that. Open each one, decide which link is the correct one, change or clear the others, then come back and tick the box again.

This is the same pattern you will meet all over Settings › Objects: before a risky save, you are shown exactly what is in the way, by name, with the fix spelled out. Cancelling the dialog changes nothing at all.

What can you change later?

Two things: the name of the reverse view panel, and whether the one-per cap is on. Both sit behind the Reverse view button on the field's row and can be edited whenever you like. The Object the field points at, along with the field's label and type, is settled when you press Save field.

A few things people expect to break, which do not:

• Renaming the Object on either end is safe. Older links keep working, and the panel keeps listing the same records. See Rename, reorder or retire an Object.
• Who can open each Object is a separate dial, on Who can see and edit an Object. Check that the people who make these links can view both sides of it.
• A linked field can be filtered on the record list, so you can narrow Quality checks to one production run in two clicks. How to search, filter and save a view shows how to save that as a view.

The link is also what makes calculations possible. Once Quality checks points at Production runs, a production run can count its checks, total the units rejected across them, or carry a value in from the style it is making. A field that works itself out is the next page to read.