Adding variable number of rows to table in form

[sshersh]

Hello, 

I am making a manufacturing resource planner app. One of the necessary features is to track assemblies of individual components. Each assembly may have a different number of components. The way this would normally be done in a database would be to have a many-to-many table with both the Assembly ID and Component ID as keys, and every time a new assembly is added, several rows are added to the table. I am trying to replicate this structure in google sheets. 

As far as I'm aware, AppSheets only allows adding a single row at a time to this table. I saw this example of adding multiple rows at once using a grouped action, but it seems to only work for a fixed number of rows. In this case I would like the user to be able to add any number of components and their respective quantities in the same form that creates the assembly. Is there any way to do this in AppSheets? Or am I going to have to move to a different platform?

I appreciate any help on this issue. Thank you in advance.

-Sam

[Marc_Dillon]

I assume you have a "reference" table, which lists all components for each assembly. You can use the "execute an action on a set of rows" type Action to run an "add new row" action on several records of that reference table, selected with a FILTER() expression matching against the newly added assembly. It's also called a "reference action".

[sshersh]

Hi Marc, 

Thank you for the feedback. I want to be able to track the specific part numbers of each component, which cannot be found in the reference table and have to be input by the user. It would be tedious and error-prone to have the user manually edit each line of the Assemblies table after creating it. Is there no way of having the user add several rows of the table at once through a form? 

[Marc_Dillon]

Auto-create the records, then send the user to a table view of those newly created records. They can enter the part numbers via quick-edit mode, or via inline INPUT() actions.

[sshersh]

I see, that is a clever idea. 

Adding onto the original question, I want it to be possible for the components of an assembly to be assemblies themselves. Can I have a column datatype that is a ref to one of 2 tables? Or do I need to combine the components and assemblies tables internally and use filter views to display them separately?  

[Marc_Dillon]

Can I have a column datatype that is a ref to one of 2 tables?

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Not with default Appsheet functionality.