Creating Dependent Reference Fields

[thomashoward]

Hi,

I'm trying to create dependent lists for 3 (new) non-choice-type reference fields on incident forms. If we call the fields "1", "2", and "3" for brevity here, then 2 will be dependent on 1, and 3 will be dependent on 2, such that the value chosen in 1 determines what 2 will display, and that will in turn determine what 3 displays. The problem is that I cannot get the dependencies to work at all.

I realize this type of thing can be done with Choice Lists, but we would like to use AutoComplete instead (for reasons of the amount of choices to be displayed) in the same general way as the example "Assignment group" and "Assigned to" fields on the Incident forms in the demo instances.

After examining those and reading wikis, I created three tables, one each for the (String) data for each of the fields, and set those fields as String type (with display as True), then populated the data for each. I then created three columns in the Tasks table, one each for the three fields that will reference those tables, and set the type as Reference for each column.

As a test at that point, I created field 1 by personalizing the layout of the Incident table, and was able to see it pull the data, with AutoComplete working correctly, from the custom table I had created and populated for it. After that, I added the remaining two fields to the Incident form, setting 2 as dependent on 1, and 3 as dependent on 2, but cannot get the dependency aspect to work.

I suspect that additional specifications for the dependencies are missing, but cannot see where to enter any other such information. I've looked at the dictionary, field and table information for those two demo instance fields mentioned above and their references to see how they're doing it, but aside from a few things to restrict the data for the references, I can't find anything else that would configure the field dependencies.

Any help in pointing me towards the places to specify those, or general (or specific) ways to do this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom Howard
Experian CheetahMail

[thomashoward]

I think I've found what's missing: In the (demo) incident form examples, the records in the Group table (sys_user_group), which the Assignment Group field uses, contain a reference directly to the User table (sys_user). So the data is correlated via that reference, in addition to the marking of the Assigned To field as a dependent of the Assignment Group one. I had mistakenly assumed that the entire linkage was done through one or more things *outside* of the two tables in which the underlying data resided, e.g the form's Dependent field.

I'll redo my tables and fields and close this ticket if I works as I believe it will.

[john_roberts]

You can pull this off with dependent attributes but it will be a little easier to understand if you use reference qualifiers.

Here's a sample if you want to use 3 tables, you could also do the same with a single table.

LookupTable1 (fields: u_name-string)
Primary1
Primary2

LookupTable2 (fields: u_name-string, u_dependent:ref to lookuptable1)
Secondary1a, Primary1
Secondary1b, Primary1
Secondary2a, Primary2
Secondary2b, Primary2

LookupTable3 (fields: u_name-string, u_dependent:ref to lookuptable2)
Tertiary1, Secondary1a
Tertiary2, Secondary1b
...you get the picture

Create 3 reference fields on incident, one for each lookup table. For the example we'll use "u_primary", "u_secondary", "u_tertiary".
Set the reference qualifier attribute on the second and third fields to limit the lookup base on the previous field value.
u_secondary ref qual: javascript:"u_dependent=" + current.u_primary;
u_tertiary ref qual: javascript:"u_dependent=" + current.u_tertiary;

Hope that helps.

[thomashoward]

That solution worked, thanks very much. It does seem clearer than the one I was attempting.

The only issue after that was that I hadn't created sys_ref_list views for the lookup tables, which caused a display problem until David Keen provided the answer.

Thanks again!