About the Visual Designer Links Control

This component creates a link control for a sub-type entity. This control is used by the Contact Logs and Tasks entities to provide an easy way for a user to link other records to Contact Logs and Tasks. (The links are stored in the ContactLogLinks and TaskLinks sub-type entities, respectively). For Persons, Companies, and Employees, the displayed link information includes the record ID, contact name, phone number, and email address. For all other services, the link information shows the record name and record ID.

Note that to use this control, an entity needs a sub-type entity that has two fields: an Entity ID field and a Record ID field (these two fields identify a particular record in the system). This component uses the following input properties:

• SubTypeName (required): The name of the sub-type entity which will store the links to other records.
• EntityIDField (required): This is the field in the sub-type entity that corresponds to the Entities entity's ID field. Typically, this is EntityID.
• RecordIDField (required): This is the field in the sub-type entity that corresponds to a the record ID in an entity's entity service. Typically, this is AltID.
• AppName: This is the name of the application to be used in dialog boxes, when needed. Note that this property is not used by either the Contact Log or Task Links entity.
• AllowDupes: This property is reserved for future use. If a sub-type entity has logic to check for duplicates, when this value is set to 1, a user can add the same record (EntityID/RecordID pair) more than once to the Links list. When set to 0, each EntityID/RecordID pair can only appear once. Note that this input property is not applicable to either the Contact Log or Task Links entity.
• LinkTypeFilterSQL: By default, the Links Control displays all top-level entities in the Link Type drop-down list. However, in some cases, an organization may want to restrict the set of entities that are available for selection. In this case, an administrator or developer can use this optional parameter to restrict the set of entities that appear in the Link Control's Link Type drop-down list.
  • The expected value for this property is a SQL phrase that can be appended to an existing WHERE clause that defines the set of displayed entities. The control already filters Entities to exclude sub-types (using a WHERE ParentID <= 0  clause). Any text entered for the LinkTypeFilterSQL input is appended to the existing WHERE clause using an AND operator.
  • For example, to filter a Links Control to display only the Persons, Companies, and Contact Log entities in the Link Type drop-down, you would enter the following in the Form Template Part's Input Map for the component's LinkTypeFilterSQL property: Name IN ('Persons', 'Companies', 'Contact Log'). The links Control would then use this WHERE clause to filter entities in the Link Type list: WHERE ParentID <= 0 AND Name IN ('Persons', 'Companies', 'Contact Log')