How does AppSheet decide which View to use for Refs (nested forms?)

[dbweb]

I have a table of Sales Leads, and an Edit View (form). 

I have a one to many related table called Notes. 

I see that AppSheet has created a System Generated View called "Notes_Inline". 

How does my Sales Lead Edit form know to display "Notes_Inline"? Is this specified somewhere or just baked into AppSheet's code? 

If I want to customize the "Notes_Inline" view, do I do it on the System Generated one?

Since Notes is a child of the Sales Leads Parent, I notice that when I edit a Sales Lead, if I add a new Note, it will only save then note if I save the edit to Sales Lead. 

Is there a way to Add new Notes (child records) and save them in the edit for the parent (Sales Lead) despite cancelling the edit to the parent (Sales Lead)? 

[dbweb]

Also, related to Parent Child relationships, in my Parent table there is a Virtual column "Related Notes". 

I notice that the Type is List. Could someone help me understand why this isn't a Type Ref? 

Does the value of this Virtual Column get passed to the Inline view? 

Is there any reason this should be a Ref? 

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

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@dbweb wrote:

I notice that the Type is List. Could someone help me understand why this isn't a Type Ref? 

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Since a parent can have many children , the column type needs to be list. The VC basically contains a list of  key values of each and every child record for that particular parent. However if you notice the base type or element type of this list column is ref and it also contains the name of the referenced child table.

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@dbweb wrote:

Does the value of this Virtual Column get passed to the Inline view? 

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Yes, this virtual column basically links the child records in the inline view to the parent record.  Thus, I believe the verbs "binds" or "connects" or "links"  will  better describe the VC's main function ratther than using the word "passed"

AppSheet terminology for this VC is reverse reference column.

[Suvrutt_Gurjar · Accepted solution]

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@dbweb wrote:

If I want to customize the "Notes_Inline" view, do I do it on the System Generated one?

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Yes , in general you can. You may want to change the type of view to any summary type views or chart type or other views settings such as rearranging column order , group by etc.

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@dbweb wrote:

How does my Sales Lead Edit form know to display "Notes_Inline"? Is this specified somewhere or just baked into AppSheet's code?

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Yes, whenever a referencing between two tables is created , AppSheet automatically created a system generated inline view of the child table.

You can also create your own summary ( or chart) view on the child table with view position as reference and this custom view will take precedence over the system generated view as inline view.

Reference (ref) views - AppSheet Help

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