Two-Way Relationships (Spring '22 Release)

With this release, the Knowledge Graph now supports two-way entity relationships! Previously, single-direction relationships between entities were supported using the Entity List field type. We’ve upgraded entity lists with the introduction of a dedicated Entity Relationship field type that supports both one-way and net-new two-way relationships.

Creating two-way relationships means that relating one entity to another will result in a relationship being created in the opposite direction; this synchronization ensures that the relationship is stored in and accessible from both entities. The relationship is also kept current as you modify other information within your Knowledge Graph.

There are two options for a user to create a two-way relationship:

  1. Shared Field: The relationship will be stored on and accessed using the same field regardless of which entity the user is examining the relationship from.
  • Example: If John (entity 1) is the sibling of Jack (entity 2) then Jack is the sibling of John. The relationship will be accessed using the same custom relationship field, c_sibling, on both entities.

  1. Distinct Field: The relationship will be stored on and accessed using different fields depending on which entity the user is examining the relationship from.
  • Example: If Jesse (entity 1) works at Yext (entity 2) then Yext’s staff list includes Jesse. For the Jesse entity, the relationship would be accessed on the custom field, c_worksAt, while the relationship on the Yext entity would be accessed using the custom field, c_staff.

Note: Any fields with the field type, Entity List, will automatically be updated to Relationship with Relation Type being set to One Way.

Turn on the Spring '22: Improved Entity Relationships account feature to use this feature during the Early Access period.

To learn more about Two-Way Relationships, visit the Linking Entities Together unit within the Data Modeling in Yext training module.

Hi -

I noticed that my Entity List fields were updated to Relationship with One Way per your comment. For many of mine, this works. However, I have a few custom fields that I would like to switch to a two way relationship. Here is an example: https://www.yext.com/s/919871/account/customFields/186853
These custom fields currently have data populated on entities and are used in Pages and Search.

Can I edit the custom fields in the Configuration to be two way? What will happen to the data populated on these entities?

I want to make sure it isn’t wiped if I change the configuration. What’s the recommendation to switch these from one way to two way?

Thanks!
Alyssa

Following up on this post! I’m late here but I have the same use case.
@Alyssa_Hubbard were you able to resolve this issue and switch over to a two-way field? I’m wondering if they are backwards compatible.