Can someone explain the difference between using Collection Relationships and Voucher Relationships? [Specify 6]
The Approach to Tissues in Specify 6 talks about Voucher Relationships, but says there should be an established collection relationship. I am not sure if the screenshots from that post where it says ‘Voucher Number’ is a repurposed a field from the collectionobject table or if it is voucherNumber pulled from the voucherrelationship table.
I’m not sure what the schema looked like at the time of that post, but it does mention needing a collection relationship…
What are some scenarios where you would use one over the other? Do Voucher Relationships really rely on an established Collection Relationship?
Any guidance is appreciated!
@emd0083 A tissue:voucher relationship is just one of the scenarios in which a collection relationship can be used. A collection relationship is created between two collections in one database in order to relate two records - tissue:voucher, host:parasite, plant:pollinator.
This is created in Specify 6 by specifying the relationship type and the primary and secondary collection (the 1:M relationship). Then XML code is inserted into the collection object form to view and show the relationship. In my case this would be inserting the voucher number into the tissue form and the related tissues into the voucher form.
So for this record - tissue number 5085 - https://ichthyology.specify.ku.edu/specify/bycatalog/KUIT/5085/ - you will see the voucher represented in the top right. It is duplicated (one is a text field and one the collection relationship link) because we have vouchers that are not in our KU collection. In this case, there would be no voucher relationship but we still want to insert the voucher number from the other collection. If you click on the voucher number that will take you to the voucher record where you will see the tissue(s) represented. The voucher link and tissue table are created through the XML inserted to represent the collection relationship.
Hope that helps. If not, I would be happy to explain further or show you my database in a Zoom call. Get in touch at abentley@ku.edu.
Ok, the example makes a lot more sense. I saw that the Voucher Relationship table was OneToMany, so my mistake was thinking that went on the form in the source collection (i.e., voucher).
I suppose one use of the many part of the Voucher Relationship would be if the tissues were not held at the same institution as the voucher specimens and you used ‘Voucher Number’ as ‘Tissue Number’, meaning that multiple tissues (vouchers) would be “linked” to one voucher specimen. In that case, it could go on the “source” collection. That is unless I’m misinterpreting the use of the Voucher Relationships subform and it belongs elsewhere.
For now, I can edit the XML to put the plugin for the table on the source (voucher) and the plugin for the field on the destination (tissue)- that should be no problem.
Thanks! 