Related Blocks and Lists, a performance enhancing extension for VTiger, that is renowned to display related records while viewing, creating, or editing a record. It allows to add records as Lists as well as Blocks, and enables to select from related records.

There’s a major upgrade to the Related Blocks and Lists extension for VTiger 7 being launched that adds several major new functions, and improves the performance. The update also includes several UI enhancements to make it more efficient as well as user friendly.

Let’s have a look at the new functions and modifications.

New Features

1. Added a new feature; while creating a new related list or block, you can choose a picklist from all the picklists in that module as the “Filter”. Once selected a picklist, the values for the chosen picklist will be available in the “Value” field. You can select a value of a filter to create a related block/list.

It helps to create multiple new records of a specific category quickly and keep them in the relevant block/list. You can leave the “Filter” and “Value” fields blank to create general blocks and lists.

2. Creating new record according to a specific picklist value in a related block or related list now auto-fills that field even if not selected. This avoids several confusions and wrong data entries.

3. Related Block or Related List name now shows the name of the related module as well as the picklist field and its value selected in the configuration.

4. Deleting an existing row/record from a block now gives a warning and asks for confirmation before delete. That kills the chance of accidentally deleting a related record that would otherwise have taken a while to figure out which record was deleted by mistake.

5. The buttons “Create Another Record” and “Select Existing Records” in the Related Blocks or Lists are now only shown if there’s actually the permission to create a new related record or an existing related record is available to be selected. If the permission is missing or a related record is not available to be selected, the respective button(s) simply disappear. This proves extremely helpful in avoiding confusions and saving several clicks per record.

There’s a huge example for it. As you’re aware that standard VTiger does not allow to select existing tickets from within Contacts’ records, but only allows to add new. The Related Blocks and Lists extension for VTiger 7 now adapts the same behavior and shows those buttons only where applicable.

6. It now follows the field rules same as the standard configuration. For example, in Contacts if “Last Name” field is mandatory, creating new records via Related Blocks and Lists will consider the field as mandatory as well and won’t allow to move forward without filling it.

7. Related blocks and lists records now map same default values for fields as set in the Module Layout Editor.

8. In Module Layout Editor, you can now drag and drop the Related Blocks as any standard or custom blocks.

9. You can now Collapse/Expand a related block/list as any standard or custom block in VTiger 7. The function to collapse it by default in the Module Layout Editor is also enabled. Applies to both the detail and edit views.

10. Related Blocks and Lists extension for VTiger 7 now supports Quick Create in Edit View.

11. Added the option to “Sort by” while creating new related lists and blocks. It allows to select any field from the related module to sort the rows in ascending or descending order according to the selected field.

UI Updates

1. For the names of Related Blocks/Lists, upgraded the font size as well as the spacing to match with the standard blocks. That helped to make related blocks to be viewed as any other standard or custom blocks. These changes were applied to detail view as well as edit view.
2. Related blocks and lists do not say “Related Block” and “Related List” anymore.
3. Related blocks and related lists now look similar and more user-friendly
4. View, Edit, and Delete buttons are moved to left side of the rows to be accessible more easily.