Collections
A collection is a group of related records.
For example, on an Attendance form, the Absence collection is displayed, as with many forms, on the grid (left) side of the form.
With many forms, it is possible to view collections of all available records. But, in practice, you typically work with a specific subset of records in a particular collection. Using our Attendance form, you can query for attendance records over a period of time. For instance, you might want to review all attendance records for the past month. Or you might want to review the attendance records of a single employee for the past year. In these cases, you can perform a query that will retrieve as a collection only those records you want to view.
Primary Collections and Subcollections
Most forms display only one collection. Some forms, however, display two collections, a primary collection and a subcollection. A subcollection is associated with a particular record in the primary collection. For example, if each record in the primary collection represents a work group at your company, the subcollection records associated with each work group record might include the employees who are members of that group.
When working with forms that present primary collections and subcollections, keep in mind that:
- Subcollections are often (though not always) presented as part of a multiview form.
- Usually the primary collection is in the grid (left) side of the form and the subcollection is in the detail view (right) side.
- As you navigate from record to record in the primary collection, the system displays the records in the subcollection associated with the current record in the primary collection.
As an example, the Users form contains both a primary collection and a subcollection. In this case, the subcollection (on the Groups tab) shows the group memberships for the selected user record in the primary collection. The group membership subcollection is different for each user record.