Using relationships with standard modules

[kdiederich]

Our company just implemented version 5.1.0. We are building some custom modules and running into problems when creating relationships to standard modules.

Since the standard Accounts module is intended to contain records on customers, partners, vendors, potential customers, etc, I have created separate modules for customer-specific detail, partner-specific information, vendor-specific information, etc.

I know I can use a relate field to link from my Customer-Detail file to that customer's Account record, but:

1) What's the best way to link from Accounts back to my detail files (i.e. Vendor, Customer, Partner)?

2) Can I do so without creating multiple Relate fields (i.e. it doesn't make sense to have a vendor link in an Account record for a customer? (I noticed that FLEXRelate fields are not supported in Accounts).

3) Also, in sugar, what does a relationship do for me that I can't accomplish with a simple relate field?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[jyim]

Using Relationships in Studio, you can create a one-to-one type of relationship between two modules (such as Accounts and any of the other modules).

The one-to-one type of relationship puts a relate field within records of both modules. When you use the relate field in a record in one module to link to a record in the other module, when you view the second record, the relate field will be populated with the first record. I believe this is your desired behavior.

I hope this clarifies things.

[kdiederich]

Thanks Jennifer. That does help.

I guess I was just hoping for something more than the relate field offers. It would be nice if a one-to-one relationship rendered all of the related table's fields available to the form layouts of a primary table. Compartmentalizing data into separate modules is important because access roles can be separately applied, and the ability to view, sort & filter combined data from tables in separate modules, in a single list view, is extremely powerful. (I'll fish for ideas on that via separate thread.)