[Bug?] Express Entries can only see Associations in one direction, maybe?

[BloodyIron]

@andrew

Instead, use Associations between your Express objects. It sounds like you’re creating associations to some degree, since you mention “Many to Many” – but sounds like you’re using the Express Entity attribute type in order to place the form control on the form, maybe? That’s not how it works. Instead, you should create the association, and then use the Association tab in the form control dialog box to place the association control, instead of using the Express Entity attribute type control.

I would like to clarify that I establish Associations between Express Objects, then use “Express Attribute” or “Multi-Select Express Attribute” in forms (where it “makes sense”) for the Express Entry of one Express Object (eg. someone registering for an event) to “pick” an Express Entry from another Express Object (eg. when registering for an Event they pick “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” as an Express Entry for the “Games” Express Object).

As per the original issue, and description, I can see in one direction that this association exists, but not the other direction.

When I look at the Express Entry for the Registration, I can see “this entry picked CSGO”. But when I list games, the CSGO entry does not see “this event registration entry picked CSGO”, so from the reverse direction, which I am trying to figure out as I want to use this bi-directional method for presenting information in many different ways.

In this particular case, the function is to efficiently group together, based on “Game”, who picked which games for this event. And I can filter games associated with the event already, just the field for “who picked this game” is blank, to put it roughly.

Jeez I hope this clarifies this enough, I know this is tricky to explain. D:

[BloodyIron]

Okay so for the last few weeks I misunderstood your post, and wanted to lend more information with my posts above. I’m sorry that I misread your post and your proposed solution here, that’s on me. Not that big of a deal, but still I’ve wasted my own time as a result, go me.

That being said, I have finally gotten around to trying your proposal, and in my testing it does not appear to be delivering on the function that I’m looking for, and has a few other things I want to bring to your attention too. So allow me to tell you about my attempts of that. If I misunderstood anything here, please let me know, because I am really very invested in getting an Express solution here, and I think I’m so damn close to it lol.

First, my understanding is that instead of the “Express Attribute” or “Express Multi-Select Attribute” you are proposing, in the forms as they are defined for creation of Express Entries, to INSTEAD use the “Association” that corresponds to what I want to select (in this case, the many:to:many Association between “Event Registration” and “Games”). So this is what I tested.

Second, I made the switch to the forms, modified existing entries, created new entries, deleted old entries. I’m pretty sure I reconfigured the use of “Express Associations” (for lack of a better term?) appropriately based on your direction for the forms. It “worked” in some areas, but not in the area I’m still stuck on.

Third, it actually kinda worked worse.

So, just to re-iterate in a simple way, I’m trying to “view the association in reverse”. I know I explained it a bunch above, and I’m prepared to explain it more, but I also don’t want to overload this thread with details as I think that is making this process slower at times too (even if those details are necessary). I want to see which Event Registration Entries selected Which Games for This Event, so to say. So, using an Express List Block that shows “Games” Express Entries, and filtering based on the other criteria.

The problems:

1. When I try this (looking in the reverse direction), I see zero data of the Event Registration Entry that selected This Game. I want to see who (user) selected which game(s), but right now I see nothing (Express List Block). As in, I see the Game, in the Express List Block, but for the column for the association for Event Registration Entries, that column is blank, when I want to see “admin” or some other bunch of info pulling from the corresponding Event Registration Entry I just made.
2. When I try the new method, no options are presented (UX) until I start typing. With the “Express Association Attribute” or “Express Multi-Select Association Attribute” the options are immediately presented, when clicking on the field, without typing anything. This is a regression in UX, and it also takes a few times typing and deleting characters to see any options. This for sure would cause human-usage problems and frustration.
3. I CANNOT leave this field blank, even when the Form has this field set to NOT required (not working as intended, clearly a bug here). The form will not submit if it is blank, saying it is mandatory (when I set it to not be mandatory).
4. I’m not sure if it properly supports multi-select (insufficiently tested, sorry)

So, the NUMBER ONE issue I care about, is solving #1 in that list. The rest are worth getting fixed at some point too IMO.

So, at this point, I would LOVE to get more assistance on this @aembler or others. Maybe I’m still doing this wrong, I dunno, but I feel I’ve exhausted all resources available to me at this point. Please help, figuring this out has a cascading effect (positively) as I want to use this same method like 50 more times in many different ways. It’s a pretty big deal.

Please get back to me soon, this thread has been going for like 2 months now, and while I do appreciate the help, this is generally dead in the water until I figure it out, and 2 months of “no movement” is really eating away at me. I know this is $0 free help, but I have a feeling figuring this out will help others too.

[andrew]

I really believe some of this is just configuration. I have tried to set up your Express schema and get things working locally. I encountered a couple bugs (some of which have been in the 9.0 branch for awhile) but nothing I think should get in the way of at least configuring this on your end.

Rather than trying to describe in a post I’ve created a video.

[BloodyIron]

Thanks dude! I’ll check it out when I get a chance and all that. And yeah, there’s always a chance there’s configuration mistakes I’m making or whatever My ego can take it. I mean, that’s like why I’m asking for help. So yeah, appreciate the video and I’ll check it out when I can really chew on it! <3

[BloodyIron]

Okay clearly you’re demonstrating it is achievable! And the UX of the Association selection is better than I’m experiencing. So clearly the issue is on my end. I’m going to have to spin up another scratch test environment (current v8.5.4) and just do a small test to see with like v8.5.6, since upgrading our prod site to v9 I think is premature currently.

I SERIOUSLY APPRECIATE your help here! The video is awesome, very clearly demonstrates your reproduction and results, and that helps a tonne! THIS is such a huge reason why I love to work with Concrete CMS! The devs are AWESOME!!!

I’ll keep contributing in this thread as I work on my re-testing and such (but not yet marking as solution). Thanks again!

[BloodyIron]

ACTUALLY HOLD UP, I just remembered that you’re not quite looking at the association selections from the right direction. I’m trying to look at the GAMES and WHO registered for them at (filtered for this event). So, can you please try again with the Express List Block looking at Games Entries, and then showing “who picked these games for this event”? It’s the reverse direction of what you’re showing now, roughly.

The reason that I am interested in this, is it should more efficiently group together whom signed up for which game, by grouping the list per-game. As opposed to listing who registered, and showed the games they selected. Consider that you want to see who shows interest in Checkers, and you want to go find other Checkers players, but you don’t want to go through each Event Registration Entry to do so, you just want to look at Games (filtered for this event that has people selecting them). Hope that makes sense.

So upon further reflection your video doesn’t quite show the whole aspect of what I’m trying to achieve here.

[andrew]

It should be as simple as

1. Creating a new page
2. Adding an Express Entry List block to the page.
3. Selecting Event Registration Entries in that block:

4. Filtering that block by the game you want, and the event you want:

5. Removing the redundant fields from the results list (you don’t need Game and Event in the results list…because those are always going to be the same.) Just include “Author” in the list results.

6. That will get you all the registration entries of users who have signed up for that combination:

If you want a nicer display…as in user pictures, or something that isn’t in a table, or something that doesn’t say “Author” on it you’ll have to create a custom block template for the Express Entry List block. But this will get you the data that you want.

[BloodyIron]

I do believe there’s continued misunderstanding here.

I want the Express List Block to list multiple games, not just one game.

Here, let me give you an example of how we’ve kinda done this in the past, and that might help visualise it (I want to do it “better” than how we did it previously).

Check this archived event page : LANified! 25: Colossal | Calgary Alberta eSports, Tournaments, Gaming Events & Services | LANified!

Scroll down to the “Game Preference” section.

You will see that there is a list of games, that was picked by people as they registered. The list groups people together, based on which game they picked (for this event), and sorted based on which game has the most people registered for it (for this event).

Right now, the sorting based on number of people per-game isn’t quite what I’m getting at. What I’m getting at is that the list is grouped by each game, only shows games that were picked (even though there’s more “Games” in the available list that can be picked), and also shows which user picked each game.

The recent thing you proposed is to only show one game, and then who picked it. This is not what I’m looking for. I’m interested in doing the “Game Preference” thing I just linked to, but in a more modern sense (better CSS styling, that kind of stuff).

And yeah, I’m already working on a custom block template for it, I just got stuck at this part when trying to do that

[BloodyIron]

So… any ideas on the multiple-games example and method I’m talking about? Not just single game selected.

[BloodyIron]

@aembler are you able to reproduce the problem?

[BloodyIron]

Still hoping to come to a solution on this challenge

[BloodyIron]

Have you given up @aembler?

[BloodyIron]

I’m not giving up, I still would like to get help with this.

[Myq]

I remembered this thread when dealing with a related issue, so I thought I’d write up a little tutorial on configuring associated Express objects . I think it comes up often and this thread gets lots of views, so posting a link here.

[BloodyIron]

Man I have learned sooo much since working on this thread hah! I think the original issue might have been that the Express Association was not correctly configured on both ends. Whenever I see weirdness like this that is often the case. Either there’s duplications of the same association on one side, or not enough. Often need to blow away and re-make the association.

However I try to avoid that as much as possible as that then leads to data loss, since any Express Entries with selections for those/that Association(s) then need to be edited to re-select said Express Entr(y/ies) through the Association(s).

Not exactly ideal, but gets back to a working state.