Master-Detail forms or how to show data from 2 forms which are referenced using ConfiForms smart fields

This is the documentation for ConfiForms Server/Data Center app

However, this might also work for ConfiForms cloud and in most cases it does. But please see this page to understand the differences between server and cloud versions of the ConfiForms app.

THIS IS AVAILABLE ONLY in ConfiForms BETA, version 1.11. Scheduled to be released 19.10.2015

In this tutorial we will show you how to show a "joined view" of 2 forms. As a starting point we will take an old tutorial from confiforms.com, http://www.confiforms.com/cfweb/howto/forms-like-databases#content and will use the concept described in the cookbook, Smart classifiers and using complex properties

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Take a look at this tutorial, http://www.confiforms.com/cfweb/howto/forms-like-databases#content

We will use the same setup

One form with "authorsDB" with one text field (as in the tutorial above), but we will add 2 more fields to this form, to keep birthdate (birthDate of field type date) and picture of type file (to store image)

Storage format for the form:

<ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="50385208-7004-423a-8b05-899f2ce6496e" ac:name="confiform" ac:schema-version="1">
  <ac:parameter ac:name="formName">authorsDB</ac:parameter>
  <ac:parameter ac:name="atlassian-macro-output-type">BLOCK</ac:parameter>
  <ac:rich-text-body>
    <p>
      <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="5a7b65b3-9616-48c3-8d4a-57adc5d543f4" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">author</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">Authors</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="type">text</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro> <br/> <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="ae9b5f7f-1f6d-4b3c-a80b-a1f263a23f56" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">birthDate</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">DOB</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="type">date</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro>
    </p>
    <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="ad378814-a600-4486-8784-5150c6dcedae" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
      <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">pic</ac:parameter>
      <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">Photo</ac:parameter>
      <ac:parameter ac:name="type">file</ac:parameter>
    </ac:structured-macro>
    <p>    <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="863609e6-74dc-4c10-960f-4050f537f6d5" ac:name="confiform-entry-register" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="atlassian-macro-output-type">INLINE</ac:parameter>
        <ac:rich-text-body> </ac:rich-text-body>
      </ac:structured-macro>
    </p>
  </ac:rich-text-body>

And another form "bookshelf" with 3 fields, as in the original tutorial to store author's books. This form will have 2 text fields and one of "smart dropdown" which will reference author details from "authorsDB" form

Storage format for the form:

<ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="8407313e-aeee-4f5c-8684-c9cff64899e3" ac:name="confiform" ac:schema-version="1">
  <ac:parameter ac:name="formName">bookshelf</ac:parameter>
  <ac:parameter ac:name="atlassian-macro-output-type">BLOCK</ac:parameter>
  <ac:rich-text-body>
    <p>
      <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="57723e05-6551-48aa-89b7-4b6851d21956" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">bookTitle</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">Title</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="type">text</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="required">true</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro>
    </p>
    <p>
      <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="eee2fd00-2de6-4bd0-af92-e52bfd2eef33" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">author</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">Author</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="values">[3670191|authorsDB|author|true||]</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="type">smartselect</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro>
    </p>
    <p>
      <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="28b00980-aa09-488f-8a8b-31ec5e916737" ac:name="confiform-field-definition" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="css">width:120px</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">bookISBN</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldLabel">ISBN</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="type">text</ac:parameter>
        <ac:parameter ac:name="validation">^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro>
      <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="69f39e1f-31e8-47f2-a354-01e5422c983d" ac:name="confiform-entry-register" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="atlassian-macro-output-type">INLINE</ac:parameter>
        <ac:rich-text-body> </ac:rich-text-body>
      </ac:structured-macro>
    </p>
  </ac:rich-text-body>
</ac:structured-macro>

The configuration for "author" field definition

So it references the form "authorsDB" located in "sash space on page with title "Authors"", and it references by default a field name in that form called "author"

Here is how you can show list of books, and take author name and author's date of birth into resultset

Storage format is as follows

<h2>List of books</h2>
<ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="da871a82-c20c-4bea-acb0-1ae4c6e5b049" ac:name="confiform-list" ac:schema-version="1">
  <ac:parameter ac:name="formName">bookshelf</ac:parameter>
  <ac:rich-text-body>
    <p>
      <strong>
        <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="e61e3a7a-09e2-49b9-be23-9877195b9dec" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
          <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">bookTitle</ac:parameter>
        </ac:structured-macro>
      </strong> by <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="74d700f8-60c2-471d-8a7c-19027bcb1cd2" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">author.author</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro> (DOB: <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="ce387217-00a8-4af6-adfc-0274c4bfb4a0" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
        <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">author.birthDate</ac:parameter>
      </ac:structured-macro>)</p>
  </ac:rich-text-body>
</ac:structured-macro>

As you can see we can easily reference a field value in another form, references from current form, in this particular example we referece not only author name (using author.author "fieldname accessor"), but we also reference authors date of birth (DOB), using "author.birthDate" accessor

End result on the page:

But what if we need to show author's together with the books they wrote?

Easy with ConfiForms. We will use filters and dynamic nature of filtering when used with ListView macros

The end result will look like this:

Here how the storage format looks like in the editor to do that:

The storage format

<ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="e129ebe8-bb01-4687-a92c-ce9144775a50" ac:name="confiform-list" ac:schema-version="1">
  <ac:parameter ac:name="pageTitle">
    <ac:link>
      <ri:page ri:content-title="Authors"/>
    </ac:link>
  </ac:parameter>
  <ac:parameter ac:name="formName">authorsDB</ac:parameter>
  <ac:parameter ac:name="showOwner">false</ac:parameter>
  <ac:parameter ac:name="atlassian-macro-output-type">BLOCK</ac:parameter>
  <ac:rich-text-body>
    <table>
      <tbody>
        <tr>
          <th>
            <h3>
              <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="5a4cc598-5085-4b82-8019-be3a14b7c0d7" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
                <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">author</ac:parameter>
              </ac:structured-macro>
            </h3>
            <p>
              <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="da4b326d-2705-4ca8-a888-d6d03523e8b6" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
                <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">birthDate</ac:parameter>
              </ac:structured-macro>
            </p>
          </th>
          <td>
            <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="5d0b4f61-989c-497a-830d-0dc37ebe31eb" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
              <ac:parameter ac:name="css">width:200px; height:279px</ac:parameter>
              <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">pic</ac:parameter>
            </ac:structured-macro>
          </td>
          <td colspan="1">
            <p>
              <strong>Books list</strong>
            </p>
            <hr/>
            <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="b2c54812-584b-4187-9951-65d0533a8dbd" ac:name="confiform-list" ac:schema-version="1">
              <ac:parameter ac:name="filter">author:[entry.id]</ac:parameter>
              <ac:parameter ac:name="pageTitle">
                <ac:link>
                  <ri:page ri:content-title="Bookshelf"/>
                </ac:link>
              </ac:parameter>
              <ac:parameter ac:name="formName">bookshelf</ac:parameter>
              <ac:rich-text-body>
                <p>
                  <ac:structured-macro ac:macro-id="20923614-a02b-401b-a41f-585664f9d7ed" ac:name="confiform-field" ac:schema-version="1">
                    <ac:parameter ac:name="fieldName">bookTitle</ac:parameter>
                  </ac:structured-macro>
                </p>
              </ac:rich-text-body>
            </ac:structured-macro>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
    <p>       </p>
  </ac:rich-text-body>
</ac:structured-macro>

Important bits here are these ones:

The ListView references a bookshelf form from the page "Bookshelf" and uses dynamic filter: author:[entry.id]

This [entry.id] references an author record, and it's ID. And this will be substituted with a real value before rendering. This will give us the result we desire.

Now you know how to do "Master/Detail Form" with ConfiForms!

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Master-Detail forms or how to show data from 2 forms which are referenced using ConfiForms smart fields