It would be great to adjust what field is used as a “display field” within connection inputs in forms.
Today, the behavior is based on an object-level setting called “Display Field.” There is no way to override that attribute, which spreads out evenly to every form across the app.
Hi @Tomas - we’re starting to explore some solutions for this request! I’d love to hear if you have it, more detail around the use case that requires different display fields for different views.
Please explain who the end users are, and what information you want them to interface with, along with a general overview of the application schema setup.
Appreciate your help providing valuable input that will help us shape a feature that solves this problem.
Hi Jessie,
Well, say that you want to have an object referenced with, for example, an internal code. But you want to reference that object to external users with another field.
Let’s take the following example:
Object: Courses
Field_1 [Auto Increment]: #
Field_2 [Connection]: School Year
Field_3 [Text]: Course Name
Field_4 [Text Formula]: “{Field_3} {Field_2} [{Field_1}]”
Object Based Display field: Field_4
Example:
Field_1: #1
Field_2: 2021 2022
Field_3: Music Theory
Field_4: Music Theory 2021 2022 [1]
Now let’s say that you have a second object, named “Registration,” that registers one student to one course.
Object: Registration
Field_1 [Connection]: Student
Field_2 [Connection]: School Year
Field_3 [Connection]: Course
Example:
Field_1: John Doe
Field_2: 2021 2022
Field_3: Music Theory 2021 2022 [1]
Now you want to create a registration form to select/add a student, choose a school year, and select a course. The school year selection filters the courses displayed.
But you do not want to display “Music Theory 2021 2022 [1]” for that user. You want to show “Music Theory” only. Or maybe instead of showing the course name, you would like to show the associated teacher, so that parents can choose the teacher. Currently, there is no simple workaround. Whatever field is set as a display field under the object’s settings will be the one and only field used across the forms.
You could add some sort of option within the Input Properties window that would bypass the object-based settings, see picture:
To wrap up, the display field chosen for any connection field should be totally flexible and view-based, not object-based. Why? Because context matters.
Take care,
Tomas
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain your use case, @Tomas, this is very helpful!
Various school needs came to mind for me as well when thinking through this, and how Students would be connected to several other objects where identifying Students by different fields would be required for ease of use, anonymity and data sanctity.
I will reach out again if I have any specific follow up questions or updates as this is worked on.
