A link to an info panel can provide important additional information about a query result, but at the end of the day, it still only allows users to view data. A different type of link allows you to actually modify application data from within a report by opening a form defined in the account; a form included in a report through a link or command is known as an Embedded Form. An embedded form opens in a modal window, not unlike an info panel.
A significant advantage of accessing a form through a report link or command, as opposed to simply through the main menu, is that the system can pre-populate an embedded form with the values of one of the query results. If the embedded form is accessed by an internal link from within a table column or map element, the form can be automatically populated with the values of the selected table row, or the selected data point on the map. If the user accesses the form through an Edit or Delete report command, then the user must first select a query result for these commands to even appear, and the form can be automatically populated with the fields of the selected result. While Add report commands can also link to embedded forms, they do not associate with any particular query result - and if they are the only command for a view, the user does not even have the option to select a result - and therefore attempting to map a target field or expression to a form field would not make sense, as the system would have no way to choose a query result for which to evaluate an expression or variable; as a result, an Add command cannot pre-populate the values of an embedded form.
In order to automatically populate the fields of an embedded form, you must define Field Mappings for the link. For each field defined in the selected form, you can select a target field or define an expression, and when a user clicks on the link, the system will evaluate the expression or variable for the selected query result and use that value to populate that field. As described in the Form Fields section, some fields of a form can be read-only or hidden entirely, so if mappings exist for such fields, the user will be unable to change them on the embedded form before submission.