How to relate Custom Tables and fields

Question: How do I relate custom tables and fields?

Product Details:
Product Family: Act!
Product: Act! Premium Plus
Version: v20.1

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Answer:

Note: Custom table fields cannot be managed from within a remote database or offline client

You can associate the records of one custom table with the records of another custom table by creating a parent/child relationship between them using a custom table field. For example, if you work in a support environment, you could create a custom table to store your customer’s support contracts, then you could create another custom table to store support tickets. Once these are created, you could relate the two tables together, so that all of your support tickets for an individual will appear under their support contract.
To do this, the Support Contract table would be considered the “parent table”, and the Support Tickets table would be the “child table”.

Using the example above, you can relate the custom tables by following the steps below:
 

1. Login to the database as an Administrator or Manager level user
2. Click Custom Tables > Manage Custom Tables
3. From the Load Table drop-down, select the table that you intend to become the child table in the relationship
4. Click Create Field, and create a new character field that will be used to link the child and parent tables together. Give the field a name that matches the parent table’s name (recommended), and ensure that the Field Length setting is at least 36 characters (required). For information about creating custom table fields, refer to the following knowledgebase article:
   
   How to create and manage custom table fields
   
    
5. Add the new field to the child table’s layout. For information about how to add fields to a custom table layout, refer to the following knowledgebase article:
   
   How to create and manage custom table layouts
   
    
6. Ensure the child table is still the selected table in the Load Table drop-down
7. Under Table Management, click Manage Parent Tables
8. In the Manage Parent Tables window, under Configure Parent tables, click Add Parent Link
9. Select the appropriate parent table, then click Next
10. Select the link field that was created in steps 4-8, then click Next
11. Click Next again to establish the relationship, then click Finish, then click Close on the Manage Parent Tables window and return to the main Manage Custom Tables screen
12. Ensure the parent table is still selected, then click Design Layouts
13. Ensure the desired layout is selected, then click Edit Layout
14. From the Properties Window, drag “[child table name] records” over to the layout. For example, if your child table’s name is “Support Tickets”, look for “Support Tickets records”
15. Click OK on the layout to save changes, then click Close to return to the main Manage Custom Tables screen

Once the relationship has been created and the child table records have been added to the parent table layout, you’ll be able to view all the child records associated with that parent record.