Sequential Object Creation

Mark HHP

Bear with me, sometimes I need to type a problem out to understand it.

Ok, so I have three objects: Company, Client and Contact. Company owns Client which owns Contact.

I want a pop up form for creation of Company where, once the form is filled out and saved, the form for Client creation pops up with Company linked and so on for Contact as well. Am I being completely stupid?

I felt glimmers as I started typing...

Mark HHP

Oh and one of the problems I faced is that there could be existing Clients or Contacts as well, so it's either a Add Existing or save and Add New.

tford

Try this Mark.

Create a process with:
ENTER NEW Company
ENTER NEW Client WITH Client.Company=Company
ENTER NEW Contact WITH Contact.Client=Client

Mark HHP

Yeah that's what I was thinking but how would I adapt for the existing objects?

This works great for one which is new the whole way through but I could enter a new company and a new client and link an existing contact.

Mark HHP

Actually, let me sum up my current problem like this.

I have the form for creating a company: check.
That form has a Client object with buttons for Add and Add New: check.
The problem comes in that you need to save prior to adding a new client otherwise all manner of weird things happen (form refuses to close, only showing create button etc)

The consultants I am building this for DO NOT LISTEN. If I tell them, you need to save before you continue, they're not going to listen. Therefore I have to force the save. What I need is similar to an installer, step by step.

customaware

Mark,

When I need to ensure the parent is saved like that I use
CREATE in a process and then Edit the object.

You actually do the same for the Client.

Mark HHP

So:

CREATE Company
EDIT Company

Something like that?

Otherwise, I was thinking of the wizard style form but wondering if I could force the save somehow.

Mark HHP

If I could use the wizard form and save on click of next button, that'd be great.

customaware

I think after the create you can edit the object using a wizard style data entry but off the top off my head, you could
Put the Client reference table on the 2nd page of the wizard. But, I doubt there is a way to put the child Contact reference for each Client on the 3 rd page of the wizard because it would not know whit Client the new Contact was for.

Mark HHP

Yeah, I think it would be better if you create Company, force save, then create Client with Client.Company = Company, force save, then create Contact with Contact.Client=Client.

It's just the force saving that is killing me.

This is the current form:

So you can see I have the default Add and Add New buttons. But the problem comes in when you save them. The winner would be keeping this and having the Client form open over this one, save, then open Contact over that.

tford

Ok, so I have three objects: Company, Client and Contact. Company owns Client which owns Contact.

I'm confused. You indicated Company owns Client. You also show a screen shot that shows both Add and Add New options.

When creating Client as owned by Company, the Add option is grey'd out. Only the Add New options is available.

kklosson

If practical for your use, you might try going backwards, where you create a client and either select a parent or create a new one. This is how systems such as Salesforce operate.

Mark HHP

Hi Tom,

For that, you can have a Client "owned" by two Companies (we have multiple instances of this) so you can either add an existing client or create a new one.

Another thought I had was, you could create Company and when you hit Create it pops up a message would you like to create a new Client? If yes, creates Client with Client.Company=Company. If no, takes you to a list of Clients that you can choose from and add.

Mark HHP

Oh gosh. Not only does working in reverse work, it actually makes it harder for consultants to stuff up.

Thanks for all of your help, guys. Sometimes I get stuck on the simplest things looking for the most complex solutions.

Mark HHP

Using Mark's technique as well, if I wanted to do just a Company and a Client, no Contact, I changed the menu button from the generic Add New Company to a process:

ENTER NEW Company (needed because I have required fields)
EDIT Company USING CompanyEdit1

So when the new Company form comes up, it has option to link existing client but no add new button. Once you save it goes straight to edit mode which now has the add and add new buttons. And I'll do the same for client. So I've given them three ways to add, as I had originally planned, except now it works almost exactly the way I want.