# Best way to tie two tables together besides relational column? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ask for Help\ **Created:** [March 30, 2024, 12:19am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179 "2024-03-30T00:19:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bfbraunlich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/bfbraunlich/32/72791_2.png) [@bfbraunlich](https://community.glideapps.com/u/bfbraunlich)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 12:19am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/1 "2024-03-30T00:19:31Z")
I’m building an agenda app. I’ve got my users table with contact info, and an events table with all of the information about that event. Then I built a third table with username and event name, which allowed me to build a relational column on users (to show all the events they’re going to) and events (to show all the users attending). Problem is, I can’t figure out how to pull in the rest of the information in those tables. If someone views a list of users and taps on one, they can see that user’s events, but they can’t see stuff like what time that event is. If someone views a list of events and taps one, they can see a list of attending users, but not stuff like contact info for any of them. And on that list of events, I can’t filter for “my events.” Do I just need to build a ton of lookup columns? Is there a better way to tie this data together than a third column with the user-event pairings? Feels a little silly to end up just replicating the same data across multiple columns via lookups. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 12:53am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/2 "2024-03-30T00:53:58Z")
I usually prefer either putting a list of events in the user table or putting a list of users in the event table. Not a big fan of a table in between, but that usually means a little more setup to get it working. That aside, with your setup, when you get to the detail screen for that middle table, I would maybe add a custom collection to show the event details, and another collection to show the users. In your middle table you should only need a user ID, an event ID, a relation to the event table, a relation linking the event ID to itself in the same table, a lookup of user IDs from the relation, and a final relation linking the lookup column to the user table. The first and last relations will be used for your collections. ---
**Author:** ![bfbraunlich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/bfbraunlich/32/72791_2.png) [@bfbraunlich](https://community.glideapps.com/u/bfbraunlich)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 1:03am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/3 "2024-03-30T01:03:12Z")
Thanks! When you say “a list of events in the user table or a list of users in the event table” do you mean a separate column for each event (in users) or user (in events)? I’ll give both of your solutions a shot. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Hager](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/jeff_hager/32/43_2.png) [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 1:11am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/4 "2024-03-30T01:11:58Z")
No, ultimately it would be a comma delimited list that is then converted to an array using a Split Text column. That resulting array can then be used with a relation. The tricky part is being able to add or remove items from the comma delimited list and usually involves a few other columns and some trickery. ---
**Author:** ![Robert\_Petitto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/robert_petitto/32/25193_2.png) [@Robert\_Petitto](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Robert_Petitto)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 2:57am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/5 "2024-03-30T02:57:09Z")
> [@bfbraunlich](#): > > Do I just need to build a ton of lookup columns? I see what you’re asking. Yes…you’d need to create a bunch of look up columns. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Murphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/darren_murphy/32/47326_2.png) [@Darren\_Murphy](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Darren_Murphy)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2024, 3:45am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/6 "2024-03-30T03:45:20Z")
> [@Jeff\_Hager](#): > > No, ultimately it would be a comma delimited list that is then converted to an array using a Split Text column. That resulting array can the.be used with a relation. The tricky part is being able to add or remove items from the comma delimited list and usually involves a few other columns and some trickery. Instead of a Joined List, I like to create a non-computed array directly with a Multiple Files column. Adding and removing items is really easy (Make Array & Remove Item from Array), and it works quite well for these sorts of use cases. ---
**Author:** ![bfbraunlich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/bfbraunlich/32/72791_2.png) [@bfbraunlich](https://community.glideapps.com/u/bfbraunlich)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 3:40pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/7 "2024-04-02T15:40:18Z")
This wound up working! I still have the intermediary table, which I used to pull a list of attendees into a relational table, then made that a joined list, then made that a split part column, which gave me everything I was looking for. There’s probably a cleaner way to do it than I’m doing but as long as it works. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/system/32/53398_2.png) [@system](https://community.glideapps.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 3:41pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/best-way-to-tie-two-tables-together-besides-relational-column/72179/8 "2024-04-09T15:41:11Z")
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