Configuring data archiving associations for related forms

Associations help you in archiving related forms together. When you set archive on a form, defining associations to follow allows you to archive all or specific related forms. For more information about using associations, see Associations-overview.

Before you begin

• Create all the relationships between the forms using associations object. For information about creating associations, see Creating-associations.
• Configure your archive from the Archive panel on the Definitions tab of that form. For information about configuring data archiving, see Configuring-data-archiving-for-a-form.

Indirect associations having Many to Many cardinality cannot be followed for archiving. Even if you select those associations, they will be ignored during the archiving process.

To define associations that need to follow during form archive

1. Open the form with which you want to archive.
2. Select the Definitions tab.

3. Expand the Associations to Follow for Archive panel. 

   You can only create Additive overlay type for the Association to follow for Archive panel.

4. Select the option for defining associations that needs to be archived with the form. The list displays the associations to follow options as per level of precedence.
   
   • Follow Parent—This option inherits parent settings. If you select this option, the option specified for the parent form is applied to the child form. For example, if “All Enforced” option is selected for the parent form, the child form also follows “All Enforced” associations. For more information, see Association to follow example below.
   • None—No associations are selected to follow for archiving with this form. No related forms will be archived.
   • Selected—Only the selected associations are archived. When you choose this option, you can select the associations and the related forms that you want to archive.
   • All Enforced—All enforced associations are followed for archiving.  After you choose this option, all enforced associations are automatically marked as selected in the associations list. If required, unenforced associations can also be selected from the associations list. 

   • All—All the associations for this form are archived. Generally, this option is not used for archiving. If you select this option, associations not meant for archiving are also included.

     In the Best Practice Customization mode, you can overlay Associations to Follow for Archive. However, you will only be able to select the association to follow option which includes higher level option than Base Development mode. For example, if you have defined Selected option in Base Development mode, you can only choose All Enforced or All option in Best Practice Customization mode.

5. Save the form.
   You can also view a list of associations which are not available for following as they do not exist on the server which the form is defined.

   You can also view a list of forms which should be archived along with this form. However, if no archive is defined, these forms will not be archived. You can double-click any such form and configure data archiving on it. For information about archiving steps, see Configuring-data-archiving-for-a-form.
   While following association for archive, server will not archive data for a related form, if archive is not defined for it.  Also, in that case, server will not follow any of the associations of the related form since it did not archive the data from related form itself.

   An association to follow for archiving and a setting in the association (for example, Follow Parent) are completely different from the setting for archiving that is available on a form. The setting in the association to follow for archiving applies only to the forms that are eligible for archiving when the current form archiving is triggered. After the eligible form for archiving is determined, the archiving for that form happens as per the setting for archiving that is available on the form.

Association to follow example

The following image displays an example which will help you understand how associations are followed during archiving.

The following table illustrates associations that will be followed and the forms that will be archived depending on the Associations to follow for Archive setting defined for each form.