Linking A Child Application

What is a Child App

By adding a Child Application it creates a Hierarchy between Records. If you have a Deals app then against a Deal Record you may want to track all of the associated Events and also all of the Risks, Actions, Insights and Decisions involved in closing the Deal. In this case we would link a Events App and a RAID App as a child of the Deals App. This way the Deal becomes a Parent Record and multiple RAID and Event Records can be added as Children of the Deal.

Linking one or more basic Apps to a parent App can create very complex systems in a simple and easily-maintained way

When in the Record Edit view, linked Applications are visible in the left pane menu.

By clicking on the App in the left pane menu, it will show you all of the records that are linked to the current Parent that you are viewing. In this example, we can see that we have two Actions linked to our Deal.

Apps can have Child Applications Linked to them.  An App can have multiple Child Apps and multiple levels of hierarchy are supported. A Child Record will only have one Parent if a Record is linked to a Parent and it was already linked to a Parent already then the existing hierarchy will be removed and replaced with the one to the new Parent.

Adding a Child App

A Child App can be added in AppStudio. First click on the COGs menu and select App Studio

In App Studio, select the Parent App from the LaunchPad and then click on the Integration folder for that App. Then click on Add Item and you can define the Integration for the Child App.

There are a number of options to customise the settings for integration. Most of these relate to the Link Picker screen when performing a manual link of Child Records.

Child App: First choose the App that you would like to link.

Default: This sets the default type of link that is performed when using the Link Picker to manually link records from the Child App to the current Parent Record. It can be set to 'Link' the existing Record or to 'Copy and Link' a new Record to the Parent

Force: Having selected what type of link is performed by default, you then have the option of forcing this Option. The User will then not be able to change the type of Link that is performed. It would then always be a 'Link' or 'Copy and Link' when using the Link Picker.

Default Filter: The Default Filter can be used to apply a permanent filter to the pop-out report. This filter is always applied, and then user-defined filters can be applied using the filter button in the top right - For more about configuring base filters click here

Hide In Parent: This option allows you to hide the child when viewing from the parent, this may be necessary when you don't want teams to see a linked child app and its data from the parent but can still be accessed by you in the launchpad if visibility is set you your team in the child app security folder.

Show Options: Setting this to true shows the different options available when performing a link using the Link Picker

Ignore AccessRights: This property determines which Records appear in the Link Picker screen. If Ignore AccessRights has been chosen then it will allow a User to see and Link a Record from the Link Picker screen that they do not have Full Access to.

Note:  At the point of linking the Child Record will inherit the Access Rights from the Parent and so give access to the User that performed this Task. Use caution when enabling this option.

Auto-Archive / Auto-Delete: If this property is ticked then when a Parent Record is Archived it will also Archive all of the Child Records that are linked to it. Similarly when the Parent Record is deleted it will Delete all of the Child Records associated to the Parent

Note: This feature will ignore access rights when performing the archiving and deletion of Child Records.

Default Copy Options: If the Link being actioned id a Copy and Link then you can set up the default options for the type of Copy that is performed. A Templated Copy will exclude any Fields that have been flagged to exclude. Including Attachments, Comments, Notes or History as part of the Copy may also be a consideration depending on the scenario.

Note: Once Apps have been linked in terms of setting up Parent-Child relationships, think about how either App may be enhanced by transferring data from one to the other.  For example, perhaps it would be useful to display information at a Parent level that reflects the number of the cumulative value of Child records – this can be done by setting up simple ‘Field Expressions’.

There is no limit to the number of child apps you can have, but we advise 5 being the limit

The ordering of child apps in the left panel is set on the first time the app is linked, this will remain the same even if you remove and add the child apps from the parent.

Inheriting Security: Copy and Link is a Copy then a Link
So for Record Copy

• Access rights are copied when the Record is copied

For Link

• Access rights are inherited from the Parent it Links to

So both the parent's security and the security of the master record will be on a copied and linked record

Make sure to click the 'Save' button when making any changes in order for them to be added to the next app version. Once you have made all the changes you need to an application you are then ready to publish it to workspace.