CATEGORY: Relationships
CLASS: Working With Data
VERSION: All Current Versions
Cascading Deletes is a term that is associated with the method of deleting all related records when a parent record is deleted in the parent table.
In the bottom third of the relationship setup dialog, you can see options to handle the relationship for the tables on either side of it. You can set it up so that you can add related records on the fly through the relationship. You can also automatically delete related records when a parent record is deleted. This is helpful because it helps eliminate orphan related records. However, all automatic deleting options should be carefully thought out before you implementation. You can even sort the related records for portals or which related record is shown for related fields on a layout.
CAUTION: It is possible to have an out of control cascading delete in this situation. It is possible that one deleted record can trigger multiple related record deletions until you have a snow ball effect. Be sure this setting is well planned out and tested before implementation.
Also your security account privilege setting can cause the auto related delete setting to quit working. If you do not allow a user to delete records in the related table occurrence, the cascading delete will not work. So you can have an option of allowing the user to delete records in that file and perhaps take away the menu option that makes the Delete Record option available. Another option is to build a maintenance script that cleans up orphaned records attached to another script or an after business hours timed script.
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