To enable the form user to view and choose related forms, use the Show Form 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 a Form connection definition to populate a Table object. This approach gives you the flexibility to make associations from a child form instance to its parent rather than the other way round.

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

Example

You have two forms: an Order Details form and a Company form. You want to associate an instance of the Order Details form with a Company form instance. If you are in the Order Details form instance, you would perform a lookup into the Company form 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 form 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 form instances and return instances where the helper field contains the Company instance ID for the Company form currently being viewed. The Connect command will pass the Company Instance ID of the open form to the Send Parameters of the Connect command. The Form connection should have an action set up to receive this parameter and compare it to the helper field in the Order Details form.

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

Updated: 06/12/2011  Page url: http://www.perfectforms.com/Documentation/manual/html/?finding___viewing_related_form.htm
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