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PerfectApps ® Help Guide

To enable the app user to view and choose related apps, use the Show App button with the Instance property set to Existing Child or Existing Instance.

 

 

Looking Up a Parent from a Child Instance

 

You may use a combination of a Connect command and an App connection definition to populate a Table object. This approach gives you the flexibility to make associations from a child app instance to its parent rather than the other way round.

 

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You cannot look up another instance if it has not yet been submitted.

 

Example

 

You have two apps: an Order Details app and a Company app. You want to associate an instance of the Order Details app with a Company app instance. If you are in the Order Details app instance, you would perform a lookup into the Company app instances to locate the company that order belongs to. You can then populate a helper field (a field that is often hidden that is used to store data for general purposes) with the instance ID of the company selected.

 

You may link several Order Details instances to the same company. Now, you want to populate a table on the Company app instance with a list of all that company's Order Detail instances. You can use a Connect command to perform a lookup into the Order Details app instances and return instances where the helper field contains the Company instance ID for the Company app currently being viewed. The Connect command will pass the Company Instance ID of the open app to the Send Parameters of the Connect command. The App connection should have an action set up to receive this parameter and compare it to the helper field in the Order Details app.

 

For more detailed instructions on tasks associated with the example, see the following topics in the Administering and Integrating PerfectApps topics:

 

Creating PerfectApps Connections

App Connection Action Types

Calling the Connection Action from an App

Setting Up a Background Lookup Using a Connect Command

 

See also: Reading and Writing Data Between App Instances

 

Return to: Linking Apps and Using Parent-Child Relationships, Designing an App