What is an Object Picker Field?

While the parent-child connection creates a strict hierarchy, the Object Picker field is designed for creating flexible, non-hierarchical references between Objects. It allows one Object to point to one or more other Objects anywhere in the system, providing valuable context.
Think of it like citing sources in a research paper. A 🧊 Project Object can “cite” or “reference” a 🧊 Customer Object and a 🧊 Contract Object. These referenced Objects don’t belong to the project; they are independent entities that are simply being pointed to for context.
This reference is created by adding a specific type of Data Field to your Object Type’s Data Screen.

Key Characteristics

  • Flexible & Non-Exclusive: This is the key difference. The referenced Objects are independent. A single 🧊 Customer can be referenced by many different 🧊 Projects, 🧊 Support Tickets, and 🧊 Invoices simultaneously. The referenced Object doesn’t “belong” to the Object that is referencing it.
  • Configurable: As an architect, you add this reference just like any other Data Field. This means you can make it required, add help text, and control its visibility.
  • Highly Specific: The most powerful feature of the Object Picker is the ability to pre-filter the choices available to the end-user. You can use UQL to ensure users can only select from relevant Objects (e.g., “only allow selecting 🧊 Customers in an ACTIVE status”).

Field Types

There are two types of Object Picker fields to choose from, depending on your architectural need:
  • Single Object Picker: Used for many-to-one or one-to-one relationships. For example, a 🧊 Support Ticket can reference only one 🧊 Customer.
  • Multiple Objects Picker: Used for many-to-many relationships. For example, a 🧊 Marketing Campaign could reference multiple targeted 🧊 Customer Segments.

How to Create an Object Picker Reference

  1. Navigate to Data Fields: Inside a 📋 Function, select the Object Type you want to add the reference to (e.g., 🧊 Support Ticket) and go to its Data Fields section.
  2. Add a New Field: Click + Add Field to create a new Data Field.
  3. Choose the Type: Select Single Object Picker or Multiple Objects Picker from the field type dropdown.
  4. Configure the Filter (Optional but Recommended): In the field’s settings, use UQL to define which Objects a user is allowed to select from. This ensures data integrity by preventing users from picking irrelevant items.
[Guidejar Placeholder: A tutorial showing an architect adding a ‘Single Object Picker’ field to a ‘Support Ticket’ Object Type. The tutorial highlights the configuration where they set up a UQL filter to only allow picking from ‘Customer’ Objects that have a ‘Status’ of ‘ACTIVE’.]

Common Use Cases

  • Associating a 🧊 Support Ticket with the specific 🧊 User who reported it and the 🧊 Product it relates to.
  • Referencing the 🧊 Meeting where a 🧊 Project Task was discussed.
  • Selecting multiple 🧊 Author Objects on a 🧊 Blog Post in a co-authoring scenario.

What’s Next?

You now know how to create both strict hierarchies and flexible references. The next level of relationship modeling is to standardize the meaning of these connections across your entire organization.