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Dot-Walking

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • What dot-walking is
  • How to dot-walk in lists, filters, and forms
  • How dot-walking looks in scripts

1 Walking from record to record

Say you’re looking at an incident, and you want the caller’s department. The incident doesn’t have a Department field. But Caller points to a user, and the user has a Department. So you can “walk” there! 🚶

Key term: Dot-walking

Following reference fields from one record to another to reach a field on a related record. Each step is joined with a dot, like caller_id.department.

Dot-walking from an incident to the head of the caller's department. The incident's caller_id field points to Riya Sharma in the User table. Riya's department field points to Sales in the Department table. Sales has a dept_head field, Sam Lee. The full path is caller_id.department.dept_head, and in the list it shows as Caller, Department, Department head.
Figure 1. Each dot follows one reference to the next record.

2 Where you can dot-walk

Where How
Lists In Configure > List Layout, select a reference field (shown in green with a +). Click the expand icon to see its fields
Filters In the condition builder, choose Show Related Fields, then pick a field like Caller => User fields
Forms In Configure > Form Layout, expand a reference field to add its fields to the form
Reports Pick related fields when you group or add columns

📝 Note: Dot-walked fields on a form show the related record’s data. If you edit one there, you change the related record, like the user’s department, not the incident.

3 Dot-walking in scripts

You’ll see dot-walking a lot in server-side scripts (Chapter 35 and later):

// The caller's email address
var email = current.caller_id.email;

// The caller's department name
var dept = current.caller_id.department.name;

💡 Good to know: Keep paths short. Each dot adds a lookup. Two or three levels is usually plenty.

⭐ Remember: Dot-walking only works through reference fields. Each dot = one hop to another record.

4 Let’s try it: show the caller’s department

  1. Open Incident > All. Click the list’s menu and choose Configure > List Layout.
  2. In Available, find Caller (it has a +). Select it and click the expand icon.
  3. Add Department to the Selected column. Save.
  4. Now filter: Show Related Fields, then Caller => User fields, then Department is Sales. Run it.

5 Quick recap

  • Dot-walking follows reference fields to reach related data
  • Each hop is joined with a dot: caller_id.department.name
  • Works in lists, filters, forms, reports, and scripts
  • Editing a dot-walked field changes the related record

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Write the path from an incident to the caller’s email. Show answer

caller_id.email

2 In the filter builder, which option lets you pick fields from a related record? Show answer

Show Related Fields.

3 Can you dot-walk through a String field? Show answer

No. Dot-walking only works through reference fields.

Nice work! You finished this lesson. 🎉

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