Relationships between folders and sub-folders

Hello! New user here, I did do a search for this question but can’t see it anywhere so apologies if I missed it.

I’m wondering if it is possible to set up relationships between items in the folder and sub-folders. For example, if we had a ‘companies’ folder with our clients in, can we then add a subfolder for ‘contacts’ and have multiple contacts linked to one company?

Thanks

Sarah

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yes you can. create a column using a reference attribute.

So if you have, for example, a task folder, a company folder and a contacts folder. the approach would be:

  1. In the tasks folder create a column called company with a reference attribute
  2. In the contacts folder create a column called company with a reference attribute
  3. In the company folder, if you like, create a column called contact, with a reference attribute

Now here is the part that is a little less intuitive.

Assuming you alread have some information in company.

When adding a task that you want to be linked to a company, in the cell in the column with the reference attribute you will notice that on top there is a “find” field or a scroll bar that goes through ALL folders with text cells. Depending on how large your database is, this can be a challenge. However if you type the first few letters of the company, you will rapidly get to the folder with the specific company and cell.

The same approach applies to when adding a contact or other cross referenced information.

Voila done.

Hope this helps

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Thank you for the wonderful explanation @birgli, that about sums it up. :slight_smile:

If you need more help @sarah, I’m also here for additional tips.

Is there a way to have the Reference attribute only reference a specific attribute in other items?

So using the example above, can it be set up to only show the options for Company Name, or Contact Name rather than searching all the text fields?

Hello @brettj! I’m afraid that for now, it’s not possible to pull a specific attribute when choosing a reference, only its name. Of course, if you click on the referenced item, you will then be able to see all the other information from that item.

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I seem to have got most of it working but I’m stumped as to why there is a disparity in what appears, depending on where you input the relationship.

Here, for example, you can see two entries, one gives the ability to add new items and the other shows the contents of the Folder.
When I say a product is related using the Accessories folder it shows up in Products but if I do the reverse it isn’t added to the prior ones, it has a new section.
I don’t want such confusion and would like to have consistency or be restricted to adding relationships in just one place. I can’t hide the option.
This likely makes no sense.
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When I add related equipment from the accessories folder they show up but when I add from the product page they don’t show up in the accessories folder. I don’t want to have to add from both.

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Also, when something does show up it lists the Description and not the Label as desired. Not sure how to adjust attributes since all I can ever see is the ability to change the name or hide it.

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Hello @leshenderson, I’m not sure I understand completely but let me try to explain your first point.

So the thing here is when you have two folders - let’s call them ‘Tasks’ and ‘Employees’, if you add a reference field in the Tasks folder you will be able to choose which employee to add to each task. However, something called ‘back reference’ will be created automatically in the Employees folder. Since it’s an automatic back reference, it’s static, meaning that it just serves to link the item from the second folder back to the item in the first folder, but it’s not used to add more items in the back reference.

This is a bit complicated and I understand it can seem counterintuitive. I actually had a discussion with our product manager about this asking if it would be possible to have the back reference ‘interactive’ as well and she told me she would see with the dev team if it would be possible.

Regarding your second post, I’m a bit unclear on what you were trying to explain there. Is it the same point as in the first one or a different one?

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