Best Practice for repeating groups as an input

Hi There.

I am pretty new to bubble and recreating an app I have previously made in microsoft access.

I want to ask the forum which is the best way to go about creating a subform as an input using a repeating group to create new records. It looks like this:

In the MS Access app, the “Activity Planner” form is based on two tables- Activity and Activity Details, where Activity Details is a subform formatted as a datasheet and is used as an input when adding rows to the activity details table.

I am trying to recreate this in bubble and want to ask the best way to achieve it. As
far as I can see, I can’t really use a repeating group in the same way as in access it as I don’t have a data source to reference before creating the row- which means the repeating group is blank when I go to preview (which makes sense as there is nothing there to show) instead of a grid with the ease of adding new records directly as a new row

So far, I have created the forms below with a search bar above the repeating group to add participants to the repeating group, with the data source as activity details , but I do not think this is the best way to go as it is not the most elegant solution.- having to create an activity, then each participant and clicking add each tome.

So, how can I add participants directly to the repeating group using an input such as a dropdown or search box?

Or, do I set the data source of the repeating group to User and then have a button to add the participants next to their names?

Love working with bubble so far. Just trying to get my head around some of it compared to access.

Thank you!

Hello @oliver.c.watkins welcome to the community!

Following a video that may provide in a summarized way all the works. It is actually a walkthrough rather than a tutorial. But seeing that you are familiar with building apps it may spark some ideas on how to approach your project in Bubble.

Hope this helps! :+1:

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thank you @cmarchan.

I think you have confirmed what I had considered, which is the best way is to have a pop up to add participants (a new record) to the activity details table and show them in the repeating group.

Basically, you can’t really use a repeating group to add new records in the same way you would using a datasheet in Access?

Short answer: nope

The more you become familiar with Bubble the likely you will agree with their founders vision > Bubble is a visual programming language.

You are given a blank canvas. To some folks this is Bubble’s biggest strength. To some others it is its biggest drawback, because they feel that not enough structure is there to support development like conventional app or database builders.

In Bubble you have to build your own structure for pretty much everything. Access provides you with functional components. Lots of silver spoon fed functions! :slight_smile:

Interested in your thoughts :+1:t2:

As I said, I’m quite happy with Bubble atm, just trying to work out how to go about things the best way.

I find it’s always helpful to ask the people on forums who have been using it much longer than I have. Often saves quite a lot of pain!

Cheers

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