TeamDesk master-detail sets an example

Taking decision based on facts is the only way not to give your money up for lost. I believe only this can lead to reasonable choices and give a hand in taking the most from the products.

In continuation of my test of master-detail function of QuickBase, Coghead, TrackVia and Dabble DB I decided to finish trying TeamDesk capability of managing this.

Using the same example with the invoice as I did in other tests I created a simple app, so you can check out the organization of TeamDesk master-detail:


Actually, the set up was easy enough, I managed to create 2 tables: Invoice with Company and Date columns and Items with columns Description, Quantity and Price. After that I created Total formula column in table Item:


I think there won’t be any problem handling formula columns, if one have ever worked with Excel or studied math at school.

To create one-to-many relation of these tables my next step was linking of Invoice and Items:


What I especially liked in TeamDesk it’s creating relations, what gives an opportunity to automatically handle all boring work you should do to have a full-fledged master-detail, namely to create reference column, choose how to display details, to set the way of how to select records from master:


These operations are not difficult, but the fact the system can accomplish it for you lets focus on business logic of the app, not on the primitive operations. You just give it a final touch creating Grand Total summary column that calculates the total of all invoice items:


And it’s done. Not bad. Finishing my coverage of TeamDesk I'd like to mention how master-detail works from the stand point of end user and what peculiar moment should be taken into consideration:

• One can see on the first screenshot layout that master and detail are displayed on one and the same screen, but on different screens when editing.


• The button "Add Similar" doesn’t add a new invoice with items, but just creates the new empty copy.


• As well as Delete button in the invoice table don't do anything with items.

Conclusion:

Frankly, despite these moments TeamDesk proved to be a powerful mechanism for master-detail implementation and I especially liked the system capability to handle a lot of implicit work on its own what speeds up the process of getting the working app prototype.