# Comma separated values in a single sheets column to drive the match multiple relations in Glide? **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Requests\ **Created:** [January 18, 2020, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723 "2020-01-18T12:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![moses5407](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/moses5407/32/2085_2.png) [@moses5407](https://community.glideapps.com/u/moses5407)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2020, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/1 "2020-01-18T12:01:12Z")
INstead of having to pre-define a number of related columns in Sheets (e.g.,Parent1,Parent2, Parent3) to "drive the match multiple process, could it be possible to simply have comma separated values in a single Parent column produce the same result? It would avoid having to predefine an unknown number of columns and simply autoexpand to match the max number of values in any one column … maybe? ---
**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:** [January 18, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/2 "2020-01-18T15:02:58Z")
You don’t don’t have to predefine the number of columns. All you need is a relation column and a lookup column to the sheet that contains your list of values. Then create a relation column using the lookup column. ---
**Author:** ![moses5407](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/moses5407/32/2085_2.png) [@moses5407](https://community.glideapps.com/u/moses5407)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2020, 9:43am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/3 "2020-01-19T09:43:45Z")
I’m not sure we’re understanding each other on this one. I’m talking about the situation in which the source sheet has multiple sequentially named columns which are grouped by Glide into a single “many” relationship column. In that case, unless I’m mistaken, the columns are predefined in the sheet and adding more relation options would mean inserting new sequentially columns into the backend sheet. It seems it might be easier to source the relations column in the Glide datasheet from a single column in the Google sheet and simply extrapolate the comma separated values in the Google sheet into the relations column in the Glide sheet. ---
**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:** [January 19, 2020, 2:13pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/4 "2020-01-19T14:13:19Z")
I completely understand what your are saying. You can either predefine columns (1, 2, 3, etc.) to make an array of values appear as one column. You can also use the combination of a multiple Relation column and Lookup column to build and array of values. The advantage of the Relation/Lookup method is that it builds an array of values from multiple ROWS instead of multiple COLUMNS. This allows the Lookup column to dynamically contain as many values as you need without the need to modify the sheet to add more values. The lookup column can be used when building other relation columns. I’ve done this several times and it works great. If you had a list of 1000 values, you could store then in a sheet as 1000 rows instead of 1000 columns, the load them into a single lookup column as 1000 values. ---
**Author:** ![moses5407](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/moses5407/32/2085_2.png) [@moses5407](https://community.glideapps.com/u/moses5407)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2020, 3:06pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/5 "2020-01-19T15:06:48Z")
Ah. Well, now I understand you! Thanks for taking the time to explain further! ---
**Author:** ![Gerard\_Fernandez](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/gerard_fernandez/32/1183_2.png) [@Gerard\_Fernandez](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Gerard_Fernandez)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2020, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/6 "2020-01-19T20:33:53Z")
Could you please elaborate the required steps with an example? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![moses5407](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/moses5407/32/2085_2.png) [@moses5407](https://community.glideapps.com/u/moses5407)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/7 "2020-01-23T17:36:33Z")
I’ll have to try and sort out how to experiment with this approach. It sounds great … but I’m not quite sure how it lets different items have different combinations of relations with values from the lookup column. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/8 "2020-01-23T17:55:12Z")
I’ll try to come up with an example in the next few days. In the meantime, if you have a sample sheet with a short description of what you are trying to do, it would help me to build an example that relates to your situation. ---
**Author:** ![moses5407](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/moses5407/32/2085_2.png) [@moses5407](https://community.glideapps.com/u/moses5407)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 10:34am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/9 "2020-01-24T10:34:47Z")
Wow! Thanks very much. I’ll put together an example sheet a little later today. ---
**Author:** ![chrishoward](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/chrishoward/32/2545_2.png) [@chrishoward](https://community.glideapps.com/u/chrishoward)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 11:11am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/10 "2020-01-24T11:11:57Z")
@Jeff_Hager is this how you create things like tags? (Which unlike categories that are usually fixed, the user just adds as many as they like) ---
**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:** [January 24, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/11 "2020-01-24T13:08:45Z")
@chrishoward yes, this is at great way to do tags. The number of tags could be virtually unlimited. I’m not sure what you would do with an array of tags though, since you wouldn’t be able display them in a component. You can however display the relation as a list of tags, then click into the tag where you can then further use relations an lookups to find other people or items with the same tag. > [@Categories, tags, multiple relations - Not sure How](https://community.glideapps.com/t/categories-tags-multiple-relations-not-sure-how/3726/3): > > I would first create separate sheet with a user and tag column. Users could add individual tags using a form button and they can make a submission for each tag they are interest in. From the user sheet, create a relation to the new User-Tag sheet. This relation can be used for an inline list to list all of the users tags under their profile. In the User-Tag sheet, add a relation to link each Tag to the Tag column in that same sheet (to itself). Create a lookup column against that relation t… I think the ability to combine relation and lookup columns to get an array of values is one of the most powerful features of glide that I think many people don’t realize they can do. Also being able to use an array of values for many to many relations. You can use an array on either side of a relation column. One thing I like to play with, is using relation/lookup/relation combinations. ---
**Author:** ![chrishoward](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/chrishoward/32/2545_2.png) [@chrishoward](https://community.glideapps.com/u/chrishoward)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/12 "2020-01-25T00:13:02Z")
Nice, @Jeff_Hager! I think I’ve got that working. Be good if I could skip the “Add tag” button and just type it in a text entry component and have that populate the Tags sheet. But Glide seems to only allow pushing data to the sheet the edit screen is created for. ☹ ---
**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:** [January 25, 2020, 12:42am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/13 "2020-01-25T00:42:58Z")
Yeah, that would be pretty cool. Yes, I think each screen is tied to a specific sheet. I suppose you could get creative with formulas and maybe do something with split and transpose to populate a separate sheet. That or use a script to do something similar. ---
**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:** [February 9, 2020, 11:05pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/comma-separated-values-in-a-single-sheets-column-to-drive-the-match-multiple-relations-in-glide/3723/14 "2020-02-09T23:05:15Z")
I know I’ve been putting this off, but I was really hoping somebody with give me some data to work with. It’s time consuming and I have a ton of test apps in my account. Anyway, I didn’t forget about you. There is an example here that describes the process. It’s a little bit more complicated of an example, but I am using the Relation to Lookup to Relation method here. > [@Multiple Dynamic Filters on a Map?](https://community.glideapps.com/t/multiple-dynamic-filters-on-a-map/4313/2): > > I modified the concepts app to have 2 levels of filters. First there is the existing Region filter. When you select a Region, it will modify a relation column that is used to show the Divisions within that region. You can then further filter to a specific Division within that Region. It’s a little hard to explain, but I’ll give it my best shot. My first Choice Component List uses the Region column in DynamicFilterChoices. This is the easy part. Next In the DynamicFilterUser sheet, I have …