Relationship type - Knowledge Article to Knowledge Article Template

[rg0173]

My existing solution in my Work Org has a relationship of many-to-many for Knowledge Article and Knowledge Article Template. I setup a solution with the 2 entities in my Development org and notice the relationship is one-to-many which makes more sense to me since you can only have 1 template for an Article. 

My question is, would deleting the existing relationship in my Work Org and reestablishing it as one-to-many be a bad idea and cause issues on existing records?  I want to add the template name field as a lookup in the Knowledge Article table and actually render the template used for the article in list views. I've looked at documentation but the relationship is not listed for me to confirm: (also this is noted for On-Prem but it is the only place I can find Entity documentation for Knowledge Article).

I've tried it with the relationship as is and the template Name is blank. I tried creating a new article from template assuming it wouldn't do it retroactively but no change. The solution in my Development org works the way I want it.

[dpoggemann]

Hi @rg0173 ,

I am looking in an environment with the Dynamics Applications installed and reviewing the relationships between Knowledge Article and Knowledge Article Template.  I do not see a standard relationship between these two in the environment at all.  Have you looked at the relationships from the Maker portal and checked if this is a custom relationship that was built?

Maybe you can identify the source of where the relationship was created as I don't see it out of the box.  Maybe I am wrong but that is what I am seeing.

I don't see an issue with you adding the template as a lookup column to the Knowledge Article though.   The N:N relationship doesn't make sense to me either so I would expect this was a custom one created.  I would show dependencies on the relationship as well to see how it is being used.  Removing it would obviously remove the relationships that are currently established (if any).

[rg0173]

Thank you for your response @dpoggemann ! I confirmed in my Work environment that the N:N relationship was custom setup before my time. When I view the dependencies, it shows zero so can I safely remove the relationship?

I did another test in my Development environment and removed the 1 to Many relationship, setup the N:N like it is in my work environment and the template name still populates from the lookup column I added. The lookup column establishes a 1 to many relationship automatically. Are there other lookup column settings I need to consider? What else could cause a lookup column not to work as a related field?

[dpoggemann]

Hi @rg0173,

I don't ever want to tell someone "yes it is ok to delete it..." as I don't know if there could be something that it would affect that is unkown at this time.  Overall to me the following should be true:

1. Is not a relationship that is used out of the box (based on the custom relationship)
2. Sounds like it has no dependencies currently to this relationship

Overall you could use your new relationship and hide the other one for a while completely and see if anyone complains, if not, then you can remove.

[rg0173]

I didn't see any dependencies and didn't think that relationship made sense so I removed it. Thank you for your caution @dpoggemann 🙂 Next, I added the lookup column on the KA Entity, added it to a KA view and created a new article from Template. The field still doesn't populate in my work org. The TemplateID should somehow map to the KA entity (we always create a new article using a template), but I can't find a matching 'template id' on the KA entity. I don't see how this would exist in my Dev org and not my work org when they are both Restricted/System tables.

Any insight on how else to troubleshoot? Screenshots for the desired outcome in work org.

[dpoggemann]

Hi @rg0173 ,

When you say "the field still doesn't populate in my work org...", did you promote this solution from your Sandbox to Production?  These environments are completely separate databases, you will have to promote the code from the one environment to the other.  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/environments-overview

Sorry if I am not understanding your question.

[rg0173]

@dpoggemann I am developing in a DEV environment at work, that is where it is still not populating. I watched a video from Lisa Crosbie about Lookups and realized what I need is different than what I was doing. I really just want to populate a column 'Template' on the Knowledge Article table. Authors use the 'New from Template' legacy button to start an article draft. We want to see which template was used to create the article. An Article will only have 1 template. I left the 1:N relationship and added a new column, matched the Template 'Name' column type on the new Template column in the Knowledge Article table and it still doesn't populate. It works fine in my Development environment. I must be missing a step somewhere or there is something fundamentally off in my work org.