Portals Within Portals -- Nested Related Data
BeginnerDisplay multi-level related data by nesting related fields from grandchild tables inside portal rows, and understand the performance and layout limitations of deep nesting.
What you'll learn
- How to display grandchild related fields inside portal rows
- How to access data two or more hops away in a portal context
- Why true nested portals are not possible and the workarounds
- Performance implications of deep relationship chains in portal rows
FileMaker does not support true nested portals (a portal inside a portal row). But you can display related data from grandchild tables inside portal rows using related fields -- displaying, for example, the account name and region (grandparent) inside an invoice portal row on a contact layout. This section covers the patterns and limits of multi-hop related field display inside portals.
Related fields inside portal rows
Inside a portal row, you can place fields from TOs related to the portal's TO. The portal shows the Invoices TO; you can add a field from an Accounts TO that is connected to Invoices. These are "grandchild" or "sibling" hops relative to the portal's context.
// Portal context: Invoices_Contacts (portal on Contacts layout) // Each row = one Invoice record // Fields you can place in the portal: // Invoices_Contacts::InvoiceDate (direct -- the invoice's own field) // Invoices_Contacts::Amount (direct) // Accounts_via_Invoices::CompanyName (related -- the invoice's account name) // (requires TO: Invoices_Contacts::AccountID = Accounts_via_Invoices::AccountID) // Add this TO and relationship to the Contacts family in the graph
Sign in to track your progress and pick up where you left off.
Sign in to FM Dojo