Question

I have 3 models set up like this:

Trip
  has_many :workgroups, through: :invitations

Workgroup
  has_many :trips, through: :invitations
  has_many :employees

Employee
  belongs_to :workgroup

Employees are nested in workgroups.

I am trying to access employee data in the trip views. Currently, I get the following error: undefined method 'employees'

Can I access the employee data from the trip model without creating a direct association between the two models?

Answer 1

There is no way to directly reference the employee data from the trip model without creating an association.

You can either add a has_many through relationship, or reference it something like this (I’m just making a guess based on your code above.)

trip.workgroups.first.employees

If you want to be able to view all ‘students’ associated in a workgroup that is associated to a trip, you’ll have to add the association.

I think that you should be able to do this:

Employee
  has_many :trips, through: workgroup