Related Items

Related Items lets your users link SharePoint list items to one another with a typed relationship — for example linking a Bug item to the Feature it blocks, or marking two Support tickets as duplicates. Links are shown directly in the form as a table, and they work from both sides of the relationship.

You don’t need to create or manage any lists yourself — the backing list is provisioned automatically the first time you save the element’s configuration.

1. What it does

• Adds a Related Items element to a form. At runtime it shows a table of items linked to the current item.
• Each link has a relation type (Related to, Blocks, Blocked by, Duplicates) and a direction (Incoming / Outgoing).
• Links are bidirectional: when you link Item A → Item B, a matching record is written on Item B as well, so the relationship is visible from either item.
• Users find items to link through a search panel; already-linked items are grayed out so they can’t be added twice.

2. How links are stored

When you save the element’s configuration, DFFS creates a list named RelatedItems{ListUrlName} (for example, RelatedItemsProjects) on the current site. Each link is one item in that list.

You normally never touch this list directly — DFFS reads and writes it for you. It’s worth knowing it exists for backup/governance purposes.

Removing a link soft-deletes the record (its Title is prefixed with deleted_) rather than sending it to the recycle bin. This means users without delete permission on the backing list can still remove links they created in the current session.

3. Setting it up (form builder)

1. In the form builder, click + and add the Related Items element to a column.
2. Open its configuration panel and set the following:

1. Save the configuration. This is the step that provisions the backing lists. Saving creates the RelatedItems{ListUrlName} list for the current list and for every target list you selected (any that don’t already exist) — so reciprocal links are written automatically and you don’t need to configure Related Items separately on each target list. (For a user to see a reciprocal link on a target item, that target list’s form still needs its own Related Items element to render the table — see Section 6.)

4. How it behaves for end users

• On form open, existing links are loaded and shown in a table with columns for relation type, direction (Incoming / Outgoing), and the fields you configured.
• Clicking Add related item opens a search panel:
  1. Type to search items in the configured target lists.
  2. Select one or more items.
  3. Assign a relation type per item (only asked when more than one type is enabled).
  4. Confirm — the rows appear in the table immediately (optimistic update) while the save completes in the background.
• Edit mode saves links immediately. New form mode queues the links and saves them right after the parent item is created.

5. Worked example — a simple issue tracker

Goal: On a Tasks list, let users mark a task as Blocks / Blocked by other tasks, and link related Documents.

1. Add a Related Items element to the Tasks edit and new forms.
2. Target lists:
   • Tasks → show columns Title, Status, AssignedTo
   • Documents → show columns Title, Modified
3. Allowed relation types: enable Blocks, Blocked by, and Related to (leave Duplicates off).
4. Group rows by list: on (so Task links and Document links are visually separated).
5. Show link to item: on.
6. Save.

Now, when a user opens Task #42 and links it as Blocks → Task #50, opening Task #50 shows the same link from the other side automatically — relation type Blocks, direction Incoming. The type is not rewritten to Blocked by; that is a separate type you choose yourself.

6. Tips & gotchas

• Provisioning is automatic — for both ends. Saving the element’s configuration provisions the backing list for the current list and for every target list you selected. You do not need to configure or save a Related Items element on the target lists for their backing lists to exist. Because of this, the reciprocal record is always written to the target’s backing list at save time. The one thing it can’t do for you: to have a user actually see that reciprocal link on a target item, that target list’s form needs its own Related Items element to render the table — the link data is already stored either way.
• Relation direction is derived automatically. Outgoing means the link was created from the current item; Incoming means it was created from the other side.
• Cross-site-collection linking is supported on the Enterprise tier via a central broker — see the changelog entry “Cross-site-collection Related Items” if you need links across site collections.
• Permissions: users see the Add related item button based on the Allow remove link / element configuration; removing existing links they didn’t create requires delete permission on the backing list.