--- title: How to link a record to work, and see what points at it url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/records/link-a-record description: Connect a record to a task, a document or another record, and see everything pointing back at it. --- > Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further. # How to link a record to work, and see what points at it Every record you open belongs to an **Object**, one of the kinds of record your team defines: Fabric trials, Repairs, Sample requests. Objects are built by an admin in **Settings › Objects** and appear as a group in your sidebar, and if the word is new to you, start with . This page is about the **Related** section that sits part way down every record page. It lists everything joined to that record: the task somebody is doing about it, the document that describes it, the sample request it came from, all in one list you can click through. Here is how to add to that list, and how to read the sections that sit underneath it. ## Before you start [#before-you-start] Anyone who can view an Object's records can read the links on them. Adding and removing links needs permission to update the record, which an admin sets per Object in **Settings › Objects** and which explains. If there is no **Link something** button on the page, that is what you are short of. ## What can you link a record to? [#what-can-you-link-a-record-to] Three things: a task, a document, and a record of another Object in your workspace. They all sit in the one **Related** list, each row labelled with what it is, so you are never guessing whether "Spring 26 piqué" is a document or a record. At Fairgreen Golf Co., a fabric trial record usually ends up carrying three rows: the task "Approve the Portside Mills piqué", the document "Spring 26 fabric brief", and the sample request that started it. Anyone opening the trial six weeks later has the whole trail without asking in chat. To bring a Shopify product, customer or order into the picture, attach it to a task and link that task to the record. The chain then reads end to end from either side. ## Link something to this record [#link-something-to-this-record] It takes about ten seconds from the record page. One search box covers everything you could link to, so you do not have to decide up front whether you are after a task, a document or a record. 1. Open the record. covers getting there if you are starting from the sidebar. 2. Scroll to **Related** and press **Link something**. 3. Type a few words of what you are looking for. Results come back grouped by kind, with tasks and documents first and your own Objects after them. 4. If it helps, fill in **Why? (optional)** before you choose the row. 5. Pick the row. The connection appears straight away, on this record and on the thing you linked. The picker searches several Objects at a time and says so plainly when there are more than it can show at once, along with a nudge to narrow your search. Adding a word or two is usually enough to surface the one you want. ## Why should you fill in the reason? [#why-should-you-fill-in-the-reason] Because a bare connection tells the next person that two things are related, and nothing about why. Each row carries a line underneath it naming who made the link, when, and the reason typed at the time. "Linked by Priya, 3 days ago, sample failed the pilling test" is worth far more in November than the row on its own. The reason takes up to 280 characters, and it stays exactly as you wrote it once the link is made, so write a short full sentence rather than a keyword. If you want to add more later, put it in a comment instead: see . ## Remove a link [#remove-a-link] Hover the row and press the small **×** on the right. The connection goes from both sides at once, so there is nothing to tidy up on the task or document afterwards. Some rows are marked **mentions this**. Those came from an @ mention rather than from somebody pressing **Link something**, and hovering one says so: "This link comes from a mention. Remove the mention to unlink." Open whatever holds the mention, take the mention out, and the row goes with it. That way the link and the sentence it came from can never disagree. ## Link from the other side [#link-from-the-other-side] The same panel appears on a task drawer and on a document page, and it makes exactly the same connection. Use whichever screen you already have open. If you are reading the task, link the record from there rather than going looking for the record first. This matters more than it sounds. In practice most links get made in the flow of doing something else: you are writing up the Portside Mills approval task, you remember the fabric trial, and you attach it in five seconds without leaving the task. The record picks the connection up immediately. See for what else you can change on the record itself. ## What are the extra sections underneath Related? [#what-are-the-extra-sections-underneath-related] Sections named after another Object, listing every record that points at this one through a linked field. They are worked out live rather than linked by hand, so nobody has to remember to keep them up to date, and they are read-only. At Fairgreen, quality checks are an Object of their own, and every quality check has a **Production run** field. Open a production run record and there is a **Quality checks** section listing each check whose Production run field names that run. Nobody linked those. Setting the field on the check is what put them there. That also tells you how to change one. The answer always lives on the record doing the pointing, so to add a check to that list, open the check and set its Production run field. An empty section says so in as many words: "No quality checks point at this record yet. One joins this list when someone sets its Production run field to this record." A section shows the first five with a count, and **See all 24** opens that Object's full list already narrowed to this record. From there you can name and keep that view, which is covered in . These sections appear where an admin has given the linked field a name for its reverse side. If you expected one and it is not there, that naming step is the thing to ask for, and it is described in . One distinction is worth ten seconds, because the two things sit within a screen of each other and look alike. **Related** is deliberate: somebody chose to connect these two things, optionally said why, and can remove the row. A reverse section is automatic: it reflects a field on another record and changes only when that field changes. So when a row looks wrong, the fix depends on which one you are reading. In Related, remove the row. In a reverse section, open the record that is pointing at you and change its field.