Ref to a changing source

[finn3549]

Hi, I'm working on an app for a construction company that employees will use. One of the questions asked in the app is what project this report is being filed for, the options for this are drawn from a spreadsheet that has all of the currently active projects on it. However this sheet deletes the names of projects when they are completed so any projects completed under that project get assigned with whatever number row it was in the sheet. Any way to work around this?

[dbaum]

As long as your app's functionality doesn't include any dependencies the row number--especially, you shouldn't use the row number as the table's key column--it's not a problem that different records end up occupying the same spreadsheet row over time as records get deleted and replaced, 

Do keep in mind that any existing references within your app to since deleted data source rows (i.e., completed projects) will be orphaned. To avoid this, you could implemented an action that copies a row to an archive table before it's deleted. Alternatively, you could change the current procedure to simply mark archived projects as completed instead of deleting them.