Referencing parent tables

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I am building out a repository for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) (dbMasterRepository) which go through various stages of approval (and once approved, incrementing the document’s ID number upon being flagged for re-evaluation). The SOP document itself is made up of a canvas column which has the narrative along with filtered views of Linked Resources (dbLinkedResources), Defined Terms (dbDefinedTerms) and Comments (dbCommentLog).

When a new document is created a department is selected (from a select list) along with the document type (select list: Policy, Procedure, Resource) and based on the options chosen, the next available document number is generated, (dbDocumentNumbers).

In all cases down the line (comments, linked documents, defined terms, etc) I utilize select lists with the source being dbDocument Numbers.

There are two things I’ve noticed:

  1. In a few cases I am unable to reference the fields I need (as they reside only in dbMasterRepository.
  2. This has brought to light a potential problem in referring from one table to another, specifically the need to use thisRow in some cases while requiring documentID(display column on dbMasterRepository) in order to get the desired outcome.

My main question then becomes, in a scenario like this where the document numbers (the primary identifier of each document) are created on an initial table (dbDocumentNumbers) how should one structure other lookups? For example, should comments on dbCommentLog be tied to dbDocumentNumbers.documentID or dbMasterRepository.documentID? I currently have them all referencing dbDocumentNumbers and while it is all working as desired, I have two competing issues that I can only solve if I change the source of the Select List Tables (and subsequent formulas that will now reference thisRow or documentID or visa versa). I know this was long-winded and lack enticing graphics, to draw respondents in, but hopefully it piques someone’s interest.

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Hey @Nate_Eikelberg! To be honest it’s a little hard to advise without seeing your doc, but it sounds like you’re building out a multi-dimensional schema—does that sound accurate?
Would you be able to embed your doc here so we can get a better sense of how everything is connected?

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Hi @Jasmine_B ,

Due to the nature of the content, I’m unable to make the document public. (I expected this to be an issue when asking such a specific question in such general terms.) At this point the document functions as desired so I’m inclined to leave it as is, but thank you for responding just the same.

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