Child List Values to Parent List

I have a number of Parent-to-Child Javascript blocks that work wonderfully but so far I have not implemented in reverse of this, passing values from Child to Parent.

The workflow in this case begins with a user submitting a comment using the List or Library control (on the right in the illustrations).

WORKFLOW & GRAPHIC UPDATED
You may think of this workflow as one used to write, edit, and publish a book. There is a writer, multiple editors, and multiple reviewers.

When the original person assigned to add content to this item (e.g., write a chapter of their book) has completed their work, they submit the item (Parent List) for review by another department.

The item (top) has two comments, one from Person A (presumably the writer/author) and one from Person B (presumably the editor/reviewer).

My goal is to concatenate the three visible Child Columns (Comment, Posted By, and Created) for each submitted comment, and write them to a single line in a the Parent Multiline Column, separated by a comma. Each submitted comment would be separated by a new paragraph/line. Editors frequently export CSVs from the Parent List to get a quick look at all of the items (hundreds of writers) and specific columns with content to verify progress, etc. Because Child "Discussions" List items (posted comments) are not part of the Parent List, this creates a lot of manual work to "match up" many comments that belong to a single item in the parent. One Parent item might contain one to twenty+ comments as the book is being developed/written.

The same item (bottom) is being reviewed by various editors. There may be new comments AND some comments may be edited inline to correct typos, rephrase an original thought, remove sensitive content - any reason. And the edits may be done by anyone. In the bottom example, Person C has edited the original comment submitted by Person A. This may be an editor who removed a poor choice of language for the audience - again, any reason.

I am trying to figure out how to expose the values in the Child List to a column in the Parent List so the editors can export a CSV that includes the one to twenty+ comments related to the specific item (book/chapter). They may export a list daily or several times in a day, so however the values are extracted, they need to reflect the latest posts/edits made to the Child.

History
Comments used to be submitted using a multiline text field, with appended text, that existed in the parent list. The managers did not like this method as they wanted more granular control such as edit or delete comments that hit the wrong tone for the audience, among other reasons.

Now the managers of this workflow have requested the comments submitted in the List or Library control also be accessible in the parent list, specifically for Exporting a CSV for various reasons.

Ideally, when a user submits a comment in the List or Library control, those values would be written to the parent field. Also, if a comment is edited or deleted, those values would be reflected in the parent field.

Has anyone done something similar or have a better idea?

Thank you.

Dear @shedev,
One way you can do it is to retrieve values from child list with pnpjs and present them as text on the form, what do you think of this?

However, not sure what you mean by edited and deleted comments, if items are deleted, they won't be retrieved. And for edited comment, what exactly do you need?

Hello, @Nikita_Kurguzov.

I have updated the workflow description and graphic above. I hope that helps as I realized there are so many pieces to the puzzle that I know and others certainly would not without more information. My apologies for a sparse ask - I should know better :slight_smile:

I do like the PnPjs option and will review. Thank you for the link.

I keep hitting a wall here. If there is a way to edit individual entries of an appended multiline text field, it would make things a lot easier. The editors of this process want to control the content of the discussions posts with submitter and time stamp. In my tests I am not able to edit a post once submitted to an appended text field.

This functionality is possible outside of plumsail but once I click the "View Entries" link, the plumsail form launches and I cannot edit the appended text.

Maybe I am looking at this process incorrectly. WIll ponder but if you have ideas, I am wide open.

@shedev,

How do you edit entries with a default SharePoint forms? I don't see that this is possible.

@Margo - You are right.

Inline Comments & Mentions support deletion/edit; Multiline Appended text fields do not. I was mistaken.