Associated Items Summary Capabilities

Infowise Associated Items functionality is one of the most useful features in the Ultimate Forms. Using the new Associated Item Summary Column, we can calculate such values as the Sum or Standard Deviation of all our Child records instantaneously. Using the Associated Items Summary columns feature, users don’t need to leave the Parent list form to add a child record or to see the effects that record has on the Parent’s statistics.

To demonstrate the use of the Associated Items Summary column, we will start with two lists: Projects and Sub Projects. In this example, our relationship has been established. Projects will be our Parent list and Sub Project will be the Child list. If you need help understanding how to setup the Associated Items relationship, refer to our Associated Items Video tutorial.

Next, we will want to add our cost columns to our Sub Project list. We can do this from List Settings. Create three cost columns named ‘Setup Cost’, ‘Execution Cost’ and ‘Completion Cost’ with the Currency data type as shown below.

Once this is done, go ahead and setup the tab for the Sub Project list. To do this, navigate to the Infowise Design Screen and select Tabs and Tab Permissions.

We need to include all three of our costs columns as well as the ‘Sub Project Name’ column. This tab will make it possible for our users to enter into Sub Projects and see their effect on the Projects statistics immediately.

Now we need to navigate back to our Projects list and create our Associated Items summary columns. In your Projects list, navigate to the Infowise Design Screen. In the Infowise Design Screen, scroll down and select the Associated Items Summary section.

In the Update Column section, leave the ‘- New Column -‘ value. Give your new column a name in the section below. In this example, we will want to sum the values of each of our costs columns so we name our first column ‘Setup Cost Sum’. Make sure and select the correct list in the ‘Associated items’ section. In the ‘Values in’ section, we need to select the Child column for which we would like to perform the calculation. For this example, we will use the ‘Sum’ operator.

The finished Associated Items Summary screen for the ‘Setup Cost Sum’ column is shown below.

Though this example highlights the usefulness of the Sum operator, Infowise also supports calculating the average, the standard deviation, counting records, minimum and maximum for Associated Items. While we will not be using the ‘Additional Filters’ section in this example, this would be extremely valuable for filtering out Sub Projects with a Cancelled status.

We will need to do this for each of the costs columns that we would like to run calculations on. Before testing out this new cool feature, we want to go ahead and setup a tab on our Projects list. Similarly, to when we set up our tab for our Sub Projects list, we will want to navigate to our Infowise Design screen for our Projects List and then click Tabs and Tab Permissions.

Go ahead and build a tab and make sure to include the below columns:

Now that our Associated Items Summary columns and our Tab are setup, we want to navigate to our Projects List to test this functionality. Select the ‘New Form’ button in your list and the result should look something similar to the below:

Notice that all our Associated Items Summary columns are null above. If you give your Project a name and click the ‘new item’ button in the Sub Projects column, you will see the Sub Projects tab we set up earlier appear. Give your Sub Project a name and enter in some costs to demonstrate our summary functionality.

Once you click the Save button on our Sub Projects pop-up window, you will see your Child record costs appear in our newly created Associated Item Summary columns as seen below.

Every time we add a child record, our Associated Items Summary column is automatically updated.

Once the Child record is saved, the Associated Items Summary columns are immediately recalculated.

Using the Infowise Associated Items Summary column, we can allow our users to dynamically calculate values such as calculating the average, the standard deviation, counting records, or finding the minimum and maximum for Associated Items. Users can easily see the effects that the new Child records have on our Parent record all from one form!