The simplest and most-readily available data relationship in SharePoint is the use of a lookup column. A lookup column allows you to use another SharePoint list as the data source for a number of choice values in your main list.
The simplest and most-readily available data relationship in SharePoint is the use of a lookup column. A lookup column allows you to use another SharePoint list as the data source for a number of choice values in your main list. For instance, if you have a Training Request list, and one of the columns for the Training Request is department, you can make department a lookup column that gets its values from a Departments list. And the Departments list can simply be a list of Accounting, Engineering, Human Resources, Information Technology, etc.
Notice that this relationship is established entirely within SharePoint without even using Nintex. However, when you do make a Nintex form for a list with a SharePoint lookup column, Nintex will appropriately use a lookup control to display the lookup list values.
In some contexts, we might call this data relationship a one-to-many or parent-child relationship. SharePoint even provides a traditional database setting to enforce cascading delete, which means that if you delete a value in the child table, all the parent list items connected to that value by a lookup column will also be deleted. In my example of Training Requests and Departments, if the value “Accounting” is deleted from the Departments list, all Training Requests list items that point to the Accounting department with the Department lookup column will automatically be deleted.
A Training Request Form in a Nintex Workflow Cloud start form
The Department lookup control opened to show the items from the Departments list
You can also filter the lookup values by specifying a data source convention, for instance to only show departments located at US facilities.
Specifying a data source condition for the Department lookup
In Nintex Workflow Cloud, you can use an integer variable and an external data source to look up a value in another list based on the lookup select. Here the department supervisor is found for the matching department selected by the user.
The department approver is calculated by matching the selected department title in the Departments list
A variable is used to get the numeric ID for the selected department
The external data source is configured to match the ID in the lookup list to the varDepartmentID variable
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