Thanks very much for your helpful input, Mr. Rowland!
Seth Rowland:. . . rather than relying on Template Extensions and the post import scripts to get the data into a repeat, I prefer to create a Repeating Child dialog in HotDocs with field matching. From within HotDocs you would "lookup" to Time Matters Contact list and pull in the data on each child. It is a few extra steps on the assembly, but MUCH MUCH easier to code.
I'm intrigued by the idea of an assembly that combines HD Template Extensions and mapping of Dialog Variables to TM fields, but . . .
Could those "extra steps on the assembly" be facilitated --- by Filtering the TM list down to just a list of just the contacts attached to that Matter? (I would think some filtering is possible, but how would that be done, and how fine can the filter be?)
If not, it would quickly get to be very cumbersome if the user had to choose one or two kids (who may not have the same last names) from a list of all the contacts in TM (or even just from a list of all the kids who've ever been "Adoptees" in the TM database --- a "sub-list" that would soon get to be very long as well).
Thanks for your great help!
AdoptNeed:Could those "extra steps on the assembly" be facilitated --- by Filtering the TM list down to just a list of just the contacts attached to that Matter? (I would think some filtering is possible, but how would that be done, and how fine can the filter be?)
Thanks again, as always to Mr. Rowland for his input! Some short followups:
Seth Rowland:I have worked with both active and passive integration. In the example for adoption of multiple children, a key factor is whether you need to know just the name of each child, or whether you wish to know name, age, date of birth, parentage, race, religion and a host of other factors. If that is true, I would create separate Child contact records in TimeMatters. I would link those records via lookup to the main Matter record for the adoption.
This may not matter here, but what are "active" and "passive" integrations?
On the "separate Child contact records": That means an entire separate Contact Record for each child, right? Would that cause the size or sloth of the data file(s) to balloon and get unwieldy quickly?
Seth Rowland:rather than relying on Template Extensions and the post import scripts to get the data into a repeat, I prefer to create a Repeating Child dialog in HotDocs with field matching. From within HotDocs you would "lookup" to Time Matters Contact list and pull in the data on each child. It is a few extra steps on the assembly, but MUCH MUCH easier to code.
Moreover, wouldn't this also solve the "static vs. dynamic" problem discussed by Mr. Rowe above? Specifically, wouldn't a Repeating Dialog that is matched to the fields in a Contact Record allow any number of Adoptees to populate the Dialog's Repeating Variable(s) with the info relevant to each child? (I don’t even know if it’s possible to have more than one Repeating Variable populated in one Dialog. Can that be done? Any trick to it?)