Introduction
Alongside all other types of information, CRM.web offers the possibility to display the records that are linked to and from the current record, even when no field exists in it that points to the child record. This is a very handy feature that is leveraged by multiple processes and needs to be understood when troubleshooting related issues, such as Displaying a Record's History.
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Functional Overview
To better understand what can and cannot be displayed in these areas, please refer to the following functional overview of the areas.
Parent Data area
When properly configured, the Parent Data area will display records for selected Info Areas that have been linked to the current record via Link IDs. This means that the record being inspected will contain fields pointing directly to the records in the Parent Data area, which can be seen when opting to view all fields through any of the available methods.
Once enabled, the Parent Data Area will display any records from any Info Areas linked, and will not need to be further configured.
Related Data area
Conversely, the Related Data area will display, for each Info Area configured, the records for which the current record is considered to be a parent; in other words: if record A would appear in the Parent Data area for record B, and the Info Area of record B is being displayed in the Related Data area of record A, record B will appear here. Note that this can also be made to display Parent Records.
Unlike the Parent Data area, the Related Data area can be greatly configured to display any number of Info Areas and can use custom Forms and Filters, among other options.
Displaying Parent and Related Data for a record
Linked records can be made to be displayed for records in the Expand and Search&List views, although the process differs slightly depending on the option.
Search&List
In an S&L view, Related Data can be displayed by simply modifying the relevant SearchSubList header as explained in Related Data area. Please note that tables from which a link doesn't exist in the current info area can be displayed by clicking on the All tables button:
As links may exist on a different info area pointing to the current record, this is usually a necessary tool, unless only Parent records need to be displayed.
Expand
In an Expand view, it will be necessary to configure two sets of headers:
- ExpandOptions: As explained in Header Links, the ExpandOptions header needs to be modified to display Parent Data, Related Data, or Participants (MA activity records only).
- ExpandChildren: Once the area has been set to be displayed, the Related Data area needs to be further configured to show the required Info Areas. As explained before, filters and forms can be further implemented to customize the feature.
Displaying a record's History
When the History feature has been enabled for a given Info Area and Rights, as described in Enabling the History, the information can be displayed in CRM.web when properly configuring the header with a custom form, as explained in Displaying a Record's History.
The reason why the History is displayed in this manner is due to the fact that History (H0) records contain generic Links pointing to the parent record. If an event is not generating a History record that can be displayed in the Related Data area, it is likely that the History record would be created pointing to a different record instead.
Note: Information in the History (H0) Info Area is stored in the Binary Large Object (Blob) format. This means that it will not be readable through a regular SQL query.
In order to export this information, it will be necessary to generate a Report in the XML Format, using the following fields: ID, Stat.No., Date, Time, Rep ID, Rep, Windows User Name, Windows computer name, Version, Module, Field Number, Field Name, Old Value, New Value, Time Zone.
Please refer to the manual to learn how to Define a Report Format and Generate the Corresponding Report.