Listing items in nested categories

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Hi there! I am new to Glide and having some (many…!? :wink: issues. I want to create a simple inventory app, where you can have a list of items that you can view based on a few attributes (eg category, date, location, sub-location, status, etc.).
Problem: My locations are nested (eg level 1: building, level 2: floor, level 3: room), and given many buildings will have level 2 for e.g., just using the level is not unique. Here are the tables I have with their columns to try to manage this:

  1. ITEMS TABLE: Row ID, Item name, quantity, building, level, room, exact level (make array column pulling building + level fields automatically), and exact room (another make array column pulling building + level + room fields)
  2. BUILDING TABLE: Row ID, Building, items in building (relations column to show all items in this building)
  3. LEVEL TABLE: Row ID, Building, Level, exact level (make array pulling building + level), and items in exact level (relations column pulling from exact level in this table to exact level in ITEMS table ***That does not work!
  4. ROOM TABLE: Row ID, Building, Level, room, exact room (make array pulling building + level + room), and items in exact room (relations column pulling from exact room in this table to exact room in ITEMS table ***That does not work!

Few questions:
A) is this the right way to structure the data?
B) On my levels table, how can I get the items in a given level within a building to show up? Eg all the items in building A on level 2, when buildings B and C also have level 2.
C) I read that using RowID is more robust. How do I use it on my ITEMS table? For e.g., when selecting a location for a given item, should I use the RowID instead of typing in the info?

Thank you!

2

Make Array is the wrong approach. Arrays are collections of multiple individual items instead of one cohesive value. For what you are attempting to do, a template would serve you better…but…I would consider using a Query instead of a Make Array and Relation because a Query can create matches based on multiple values instead of just one value.

Storing RowID in each of the child tables is more robust because it allows you to change a building name for example without having to update every row in every other child table that refers to that name. It all depends on how you add child rows, but I would consider it. You can still use relation/lookups or query/single value combinations in the child table to the parent table to retrieve the actual names.

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