topic Re: Setting ParentId for child rows in Community Chat

Setting ParentId for child rows

shaked — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:01:51 GMT

I have a CSV table that contains both parent and child records.
I need to identify if a row is a child based on a specific value in the Name field.
The parent is also identified by a specific value in the Name field.

For each child record, I need to:

Find the relevant parent record within the same table
Update the child row’s ParentId field with the value of the corresponding parent

I am looking for an efficient and clear way to implement this logic in Workato.

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

rajeshjanapati — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:32:02 GMT

Hi @shaked,

you can implement with the help of SQL Transformations by Workato application by passing CSV File contents or a file from FileStorage and implement the logic in SQL Query, where you can get the required output rows in a single step. Hope you got my point?

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

shaked — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:06:53 GMT

Thank you for your response,
I’m relatively new to Workato and wanted to make sure I’m following best practices.
In your opinion, would using a Lookup Table be the right approach here for mapping parent and child accounts, instead of using SQL?

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

francbaviello — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:16:15 GMT

Hi, the solution @rajeshjanapati 's is ok because:
Lookup table: Not suitable for large volumes, No complex queries, No relationships
SQL Collection: You have many records, Advanced SQL queries, You need to make complex queries

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

shaked — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:36:11 GMT

Thank you for the explanation.
Since I’m still new to Workato, I wanted to get your guidance.
In my case, the CSV file is relatively small and contains a limited number of records.

Given this context, would a Lookup Table be a reasonable approach here, or would you still recommend using SQL Collections as a best practice?

I’d appreciate your perspective.

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

rajeshjanapati — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 05:53:13 GMT

as you mentioned the input is csv file and you can able to retrieve the csv contents and then go with SQL Collections by Workato with create list with csv file, which would be a recommended and best practise.

when you take lookup table, you need to store the csv contents into table and after storing the data into lookup table again you need to retrieve the records, which is un-necessary of adding a step.

Recommended approach: get csv file contents (already you have) --> create a list with csv file (SQL Collections app) --> Query list (SQL Collections app).

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

francbaviello — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:59:35 GMT

I recommend sql collection since we don't know if the table might grow in size in the future.

Re: Setting ParentId for child rows

shaked — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:18:33 GMT

Thank you very much, I use SQL.