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Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

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    #1

    Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

    This is interesting. Based on some needs by my customer for a project I'm working on, I would like to place a Repeating Section within a Repeating Section... And I'm not sure if it's doable. When I tried it, I got a strange result, so I can use some help (maybe a list control or viewbox or something else will be a better route). Here's what I'm trying to accomplish:

    I have developed an application where the user develops "quotations" for construction jobs. For that, I used a simple Repeating Section with a "Lookup Field" that populates a description field. The user can add a price. It works well. However, my customer wants to be able to add "disclaimers" and other Notes, specifically for that Item in the quote (which would also save with the quote, attached to that item). So, if the Lookup Item is "Pave Driveway" and the description is "Repair 500 sq ft Drive with premium asphalt", she wants to be able to add notes, just for that item, such as "Customer Responsible for cleaning and preparing area" and (next line in the Repeating Section) "Price Does Not Include Striping Parking Spaces", etc. Those are descriptions for that specific task. The next task might be "Concrete Blocks" with a description "Add concrete blocks to parking spaces, after pavement has settled" and there would be descriptions for that, as well.

    When I tried to put a repeating section within the repeating section, I get an error message that "Repeating Sections cannot be nested) and it added a "rogue" field to the design (see image below).
    So, obviously, I can't do it the way I wanted.

    Is there any way to accomplish what I want or do I have to completely rethink my customer's request?

    I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.

    Phil
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

    Several possibilities:

    1) Put a button in your repeating section. The button allows you to open another UX (or a container, or a panel tab) which has a repeating section (or a list) filtered to the current row in the repeating section.

    2) If you are not worried about mobile, use a grid instead. You can nest grids no problem.

    3) Change the entire construct to a list structure. You can't nest lists, but you can have parent and child lists that would allow you to get to the same place.

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      #3
      Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

      when you have repeating section in a ux, the primary table is not saved yet and hence the repeating section does not have its id so there is no way to add another repeating section either in the same ux or popup filtered by the current row in the repeating section ( because it is not there yet).
      grid is definitely an option since you can save independantly, unlike ux/dialogs, as you go. the drawback with this is that the customer cannot discard the quote, since it is saved unlike ux/dialogs.
      or, you can just add an additional field/control to add comment disclaimer to the repeating section itself
      thanks for reading

      gandhi

      version 11 3381 - 4096
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        #4
        Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

        In my application, I have a cost library (table) where people can write it once - pick from that and tweak it from there. So users can create any amount of choices with ones for Driveways with disclaimers and others without - they could still choose, depending on what they wanted so your back to write it once and just point to select.
        An alternate idea would be to create 2 additional tables, one for job types and one for additional verbiage - then use "types" as a dynamic filter in a lookup for the additional verbiage that again - they would write once and simply select during quotes.

        Lastly, if your not using lists - you should start! While grids definitely are awesome, the UX control is outstanding when used with list controls. I have one UX with a repeating section for my invoicing component and at least once a month I consider re-writing it to get rid of the repeating section because customizing it's appearance is really difficult for me, and I want to do other things that a list control seems to me would make more sense and be easier to work with in terms of appearance and presentation, but that's all in my limitations and experience - I just don't like repeating sections!
        NWCOPRO: Nuisance Wildlife Control Software My Application: http://www.nwcopro.com "Without forgetting, we would have no memory at all...now what was I saying?"

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

          Hi Larry, Ghandi and Charles-

          I hope you had a good holiday weekend. Sorry for the slow response. I've been working feverishly on this application.

          Anyway, the way I solved my issue was to add 8 "description" fields to the SQL Server database record (8 was more than they'd ever need). Then, I used buttons and "show/hide" expressions to let the user add or delete the description lines (just as they would with a repeating section). OK, don't be mad at me! I know this adds/bloats the database size, but it actually addressed all of the things I was trying to accomplish (including making it easier to edit a quote if their customer has changes).

          To show you (and anyone else who's trying to accomplish something similar) a created a short video that shows how it's working. You can view it here: https://www.screencast.com/t/xWkkb6s8.

          I showed it to my customers and they were delighted, as it did everything they hoped it would do.

          I can't thank you enough for your guidance and suggestions. You definitely enhanced my skills.

          With appreciation,
          Phil

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

            Repeating sections cannot be nested. But if you are trying to model parent-child-grandchild data (which is what a nested repeating section would be showing), you can use List controls with Detail views. You can define a parent-child relationship between the Lists. This will allow you to model parent-child-grandchild data structurres.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

              Thanks Selwyn! I'll have to try it. I'm very weak on List Controls and Viewboxes. I haven't figured out how to incorporate them into my applications and when to use them. I know they're very powerful, but, when I tried to use List Boxes instead of embedded grids, etc., I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted, so I took the "coward's way out" and went back to what I can do well. I have to make some time to learn more about List Boxes... is there a comprehensive video that shows off most of the features?

              I appreciate all your help and the great work you and your team are doing.

              Phil

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Repeating Section WITHIN a Repeating Section... Is it possible?

                there is an extensive collection of videos on the List control


                if you go to help/video finder and search for 'list' you will find many video.

                if you want to focus on lists with detail views, here is a good entry point to the documentation

                https://www.alphasoftware.com/docume...20applications
                Last edited by Sarah Mitchell; 04-21-2017, 12:36 PM. Reason: fixed url to go to correct location

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