Ok - Frustrated new user here and I would like the experts to weigh in.
I am attempting to create a simple Purchasing System with 3 tables: Suppliers, Purchase Orders, and Purchase Order Lines. From a user perspective I need the User to be able to 1) Add a new PO (with common header details like Vendor ID, Order Date, Shipping Method, etc.), then move to a next screen where they can add line items (from lookup Products table), add quantity and unit price. Once they have added the necessary PO lines, then they go to summary screen where calculated subtotal is shown, and User adds Freight, Sales, Tax, Duties. Then User submits the new record. All is working up to the point where button on screen #1 (Order Details) takes User to screen #2 (Line Items). I cannot figure out how to pass a temporary PO ID to the line items screen. This must be possible, but I have not found the magic yet.
Could someone explain or point me to a definitive approach? I have found references to 2 different approaches: User Specific columns or Temporary PO Table. Do either work, how to make them work, and which approach is considered best practice in Glide?
Any help would be greatly appreciated - I have been tearing my hair out for hours to no avail.
The Best and easiest way to do this is to use a Helper Table and rely on the built-in Row ID.
Create a “Helper POs” table with fields like Vendor, Order Date, Shipping Method, etc. Make sure it has Row ID enabled.
When the user clicks “New PO”, use a custom action to:
Add a new row to the helper table (this auto-generates a Row ID).
Save that Row ID into a user-specific column in your Users table (e.g. Current Helper PO Row ID).
Navigate the user to the Line Items screen, which is filtered to only show items linked to that Row ID.
As the user adds line items, include a column in the PO Line Items table to store the associated Helper PO Row ID.
On the summary screen, let them enter final values like Freight, Tax, Duties, etc.
When they hit Submit, copy all the data from the helper row and related line items into your main Purchase Orders table, then clear the helper data if needed.
Hi Mazen - Thanks for the quick feedback. It sounds like your approach is similar to my Temp PO Table. Can you, by any chance, point me to a working example? I have looked at dozens of the templates, but none of these options seem to be able to handle the parent → child complexity.
My frustration is that from a relational point of view, this should be fairly simple, but the lack of functionality by Glide’s front end keeps getting in the way. I frankly don’t want to waste more time, if Glide can’t actually perform.
Hello, You need all suppliers to have IDs, as well as the Purchase Orders and the items to be added,
When creating a purchase order, which the customer can choose from a Choise and configure so that the supplier ID is in a field within your PO table, once the PO is created with the corresponding supplier, you must create an auxiliary table where the IDs of the items are stored, as well as the IDs of the Suppliers, you can add the items with a button that calls the form of the auxiliary table, now create a relationship within your PO table, where the ID of the PO matches the Id of the PO within your Auxiliary table, show them in a list-type collection within your PO, then with a loockup you can extract the name of the items, price, etc.
Glad you found it too. Their videos are such a hidden gem tbh. Short, clear, and actually fun to watch. Definitely worth checking out the rest! Let me know how your system turns out!
