Adding a parameter to a Many to Many Link Type

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1

Hello, I am currently designing a scheduling application and have an issue with a dataset backed link type. I have my object “Employee” and another object “Qualifications” which is a many to many type relationship. My backing dataset for this link type has 4 columns:

  1. ID
  2. Employee ID
  3. Qualification ID
  4. Status

When creating the link type, there is no way to use this “Status” column as the only configuration I can make are selecting the foreign keys to map my Employee object and Qualification object.

My current work around will be to embed the status parameter directly into the Qualification object by duplicating all Qualifications so that “Qualification A” will now be 2 different objects, with an extra parameter denoting the status.

But lets say I need to add a new status for whatever reason, it seems impractical to go through each different qualification and create a new one that has a different value for “Status”.

If there is a way to utilize an extra column in a backing dataset for a many to many relationship, I’m all ears. Or if there is another design paradigm that should be followed for this use case please let me know.

Thank you.

2

Hello! We have a new feature in development called object backed link types that is essentially a many to many link type backed by an object type. Until then - I can offer the following work around

  1. Create a new object type for the Employee-Qualifications relationship using the backing dataset
  2. Create a foreign key link type from Employee to the new object type
  3. Create a foreign key link type from Qualifications to the new object type

Now you have a link path that contains the information you need. As I am not completely sure about your use case here, I can’t advise as to how you would consume this data-model, but happy to talk about it if you have further questions