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Why almost all the videos i watched and documentation i read do not use SharePoint lookups instead they store the Master/Parent id in a field

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Posted on by johnjohn123

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I watched a lot of videos which show how to build Master/Detailed tables in SharePoint and manage them in Power Apps. Now usually inside SharePoint when we have Parent/Child or Master/Detailed lists we use a lookup column inside the Child or Detailed to reference the Parent or Master record. but inside all the Power Apps videos which show how to build such an application they do no use any lookup column. Instead they store the Parent or Master ID as plain text inside the Child or Detailed record! so is there any specific reason? is it because dealing with Lookup column inside Power Apps is a bit of pain?

here are some popular videos which i am taking about:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgznk4XlPCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCYY9ZL48Mw&t=962s

Thanks

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Building Power Apps

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Drrickryp Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@johnjohn123

Yes!
Pstork1 69,661 Most Valuable Professional on at

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One big reason is that SharePoint lists can only have a very limited number of Lookup columns, 7-8 at most. Equally important is that Filtering and Sorting by Lookup columns really doesn't work, while sorting by a column that manually records a key in the other record does.
johnjohn123 3,514 on at

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@Pstork1 so you recommend not to use lookups and rely on storing the parent Id inside a free text?
Pstork1 69,661 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I've done it both ways. The real point here is that both approaches are an attempt to turn SharePoint into a relational database. It isn't one and never will be. If you can use a real database like Dataverse or SQL I would recommend that. But often there are licensing issues. If you only need to relate a couple lists then its ok to use a Lookup. But if its going to be a complex database with a lot of calculations and manipulations its often easier to use the parent ID/child id. There is no one hard fast rule.