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How are data exports formatted when using repeatable sections?
How are data exports formatted when using repeatable sections?

Data files from exported data out of an app that has repeatable sections.

Mike Meesseman avatar
Written by Mike Meesseman
Updated over a week ago

Child record data that is contained in repeatable sections will be exported to their own individual files or sheets (Excel Format). There are three different columns that you need to be aware of: Record ID, Parent ID, Root Record ID. 

  • Record ID: Every record will have a record ID. This is the ID of the element you are viewing.

  • Parent ID: This column will only be found in repeatable section data sets and contain the record ID of the immediate parent record.

  • Root Record ID: This column will only be found in repeatable section data sets and contain the record ID of the root level record. This only comes into play if you have repeatable sections nested within additional repeatable sections.

The naming of these columns can alter slightly based on on the data is obtained from fulcrum. Below is a table of the differences between the column header names between the exporter and downloader.

Notes

  • When using the downloader, the _record_id  column header is replaced with _child_record_id for the Record ID column and the _record_id  header is used for the Root Record ID.

  • You can tell how the data file was created by looking for the leading underscore.  

Example

If you have an app that has nested repeatable sections, it will be formatted like this:

Root Level Parent Record -> Child Repeatable section -> Child level 2 Repeatable Section -> Child level 3 Repeatable Section.

Exporter

The file that contains the child level 3 repeatable data will contain both the ID’s for the child level 2 repeatable section (fulcrum_parent_id ) and the root level parent record (fulcrum_record_id ).

Downloader

The file that contains the child level 3 repeatable data will contain both the ID’s for the child level 2 repeatable section (_parent_id ) and the root level parent record (_record_id ). The ID for the records will be _child_record_id.

Linking

These ID columns can then be used outside of Fulcrum to recreate the connection and link records back together. If you want to ensure that the child is always linked to the immediate parent record, then you will want to use the fulcrum_id (exporter) or _record_id (downloader) column in the parent file and the fulcrum_parent_id (exporter) or parent_id (downloader) column in the child data file. If you have nested repeatable sections like the example above, you want to make sure that you are using the appropriate "parent" file when making the connection.

If you are only concerned with linking the child data to the root level record data then you can use the fulcrum_id (exporter) or _record_id (downloader) column in the root level data file and the fulcrum_record_id (exporter) / _record_id (downloader) in all of the child data files.

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