Multistep form - Record association

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Posted on by SriHarish

Hi,

I have to achieve a thing in Multistep form with two steps.

I have two tables Table A and Table B, Table A has a lookup column for Table B.

In the multistep form, I am trying to do the following,

Step1: Creating a record for Table A

Step 2: Creating a record for Table B

Step 3: Have to populate the lookup field in Table A with the Table B record created in 2nd step.

Could anyone help me on this?

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aofosu 105 on at

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When creating records with related entries, there must be a certain order of operations, particularly when dealing with a parent-child table relationship:

Table A (Parent) and Table B (Child)

In this setup, Table A is the parent table, and Table B is the child table, meaning Table B includes a lookup field referencing Table A. This implies that records in Table A must exist before you can link them to records in Table B. Therefore, you should always create records in the parent table (Table A) first, followed by the child table (Table B).

To link the child table to the parent table, you have two options:
Manual Lookup: During step 2, manually search for and select the appropriate records from Table A.
Associated Table Reference Method: Use Associated Table Refence on the form step to automatically prepopulate the lookup field with the record resource type pointing the previous step (step 1).
How-To
Step 1: Create form step as insert mode and link it to Table A's form (or form tab)

Step 2: Create form step as insert mode and link it to Table B's form tab

Configure the Associated Table Reference to take the GUID of the record created in Step 1 and associate it with the record you will be creating in this step

Step 3: Create a form step in edit mode and link it to Table B's form tab (the could be a tab with all attributes set to read-only). The lookup to Table A was associated in Step 2 so in Step 3 you will see the value.

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Fubar 8,346 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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You usually wouldn't attempt to do it as a separate step. You would use your first record A either in the first step (or again in the second step), and have the Lookup you are wanting to populate on that form, then:

use the Portal/Power Pages Management App

add a Metadata record to the Step.

for the Metadata record Type = Attribute, and select your lookup field

further down the Metadata record there is section for you to specify the form to use for creating in the Lookup, set it to the appropriate form.

Setting this will let your portal users create the B record from the Lookup interface (assuming they have appropriate Table Permissions to create)

If your record B is actually a child record of A (e.g. and you are wanting to update the lookup on A with the latest child record), then use the form A and add a Subgrid for B and then have a realtime Workflow or Plugin that triggers on create of B to populate A (as B will currently have a Lookup to A and you use that value).

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