MDR “Edit Association” Action Opens Edit Details Modal Instead of Editing Association

[Jennifer-Oxborough]

In the MDR, there are icons at the top of the third panel, they all make sense except the 2nd one (looks like a piece of paper). It's called Edit Association. When I read that and see it next to Delete Association (broken chain), I would assume it would let me make modifications to the association, but it doesn't, instead it brings up a smaller version of the edit details modal. Is this expected or should the button actually allow you to edit the association as the button name indicates?

In the MDR third panel, the “Edit Association” icon/action (paper icon) appears to behave inconsistently with its label and adjacent actions.

Current Behavior
The “Edit Association” action opens a smaller version of the Edit Details modal.
It does not appear to allow modification of the association itself.

Expected Behavior
Based on the action name (“Edit Association”) and its placement next to “Delete Association” (broken chain icon), the expectation is that the action would allow users to modify the association relationship/configuration itself, rather than only editing details metadata.

Additional Findings
During investigation, inconsistent data structures were identified between attribute_association and entity_association endpoint responses.

Example response from attribute_association:
{ "Id": 1989, "EntityId": 2, "AttributeId": 1900, "Notes": null, "CreationDate": null, "ActivationDate": null, "DeprecationDate": null, "Contributor": null, "ContributorOrganization": "LIF", "ExtendedByDataModelId": null}
Example response from entity_association:
{ "Id": 52, "ParentEntityId": 321, "ChildEntityId": 323, "Relationship": null, "Placement": null, "Notes": null, "CreationDate": null, "ActivationDate": null, "DeprecationDate": null, "Contributor": null, "ContributorOrganization": "StateU", "Extension": false, "ExtensionNotes": null, "ExtendedByDataModelId": null}

Notes
entity_association endpoint appears to return expected association fields.
attribute_association endpoint does not appear to return the same fields, which may explain the inconsistent UI behavior.
Need confirmation whether:
The current UI behavior is expected, OR
The button/functionality is incomplete or mislabeled.

[cbeach47]

The underlying database matches the responses - entity associations have placement and relationship fields, but entity attribute associations do not. The additional fields that are common in both dialogs, such as the activation date and contributor are fields on the association records, so it aligns that they are in the 'Edit Association' dialog. The ParentEntityId/ChildEntityId and EntityId/AttributeId are the key 'association' points, but are just not consistently labeled in the database, and the misalignment looks to have propagated to the UX.

It does feel a bit disjoint in the UX that the Attribute 'Edit Association' dialog doesn't have placement or relationship fields. It might help to have some descriptive text at the top of the attribute association dialog that attributes are only associated in a single way.

[thelmick-unicon]

Instead of adding the descriptive text, I think removing the button when there is no relationship to edit would make more sense. Having a button that doesn't serve any real purpose is confusing to users. The same data that can be edited in the 'Edit Association' dialog when there is only a single association can also be edited from the 'Edit Item' dialog, except for the creation date, which isn't editable, so no functionality will be lost.

[ahungerford-unicon]

@thelmick-unicon Just to be clear, the Edit Association button is not editing the Attribute fields (what you'd see from Edit Attribute), but instead is editing the Attribute Association details; both have similar fields, but there are completely different tables of data which is why it was suggested to add descriptive text for the dialog. There is nothing wrong with removing the Edit Association for Attributes, but I wanted to be clear of the distinction of what was being editing before I continued.

[thelmick-unicon]

Thanks @ahungerford-unicon ! The group decided to leave the button and instead add the descriptive text.

[ahungerford-unicon]

Should I use Jennifer's suggestion of The item association selected does not support placements, so placement and relationship editing options are unavailable. or something else?

[thelmick-unicon]

@ahungerford-unicon That is the correct text.