MichaelW

I tried a number of ideas offered by people, but unfortunately filemaker refused just about every one because it isn't a local table but one in a MSSQL database. I ended up just triggering an a script to import to a local table from the sql database with import/append/add. It only takes 2 seconds so I kick up a dialogue box and it seems this will at least work for now. Unfortunately, all of the suggestions I got (calculated text fields, virtual value list etc) worked great if the table/database was local but failed if it were a remote sql database.

Carlos- I tried doing that already. It said I cannot do this since the calculated field I created (which was last name & " " & first name from the sql table) cannot be used as the value list since it cannot be indexed. –

Hi all. I am relatively new to Filemaker programming, but I have come across what I thought was a bug, which I have been tearing my hair out trying to squash, only to find it is more a "feature" than a bug. I have a field set as the key for lookups in a ms sql database which I have created a relationship with. I have it set as a drop down, and it is showing 2 fields (last name and first name). Unfortunately, it only shows 1 person per last name in the sorted list (example, there are 5 people with the last name "Bennett" but only 1 shows). After driving myself nuts trying to find the error, I found the following in the filemaker troubleshooting section: : If the value list is defined to display information from two fields, items will not be duplicated for the field on which the value list is sorted. For example, if the value list displays information from the Company field and the Name field, and if the values are sorted by the Company field, only one person from each company will appear in the value list. As I read it, I can't do what I need to do with a value list (display EVERY last name from the sql file) so what other options do I have? I have experimented with creating a portal which DOES show a list of ALL the last names and first names, but I don't know/understand enough to know what logic/functionality I need so if I click one of the people in the portal list it will do the same thing as if I clicked it in a dropdown value list, which is to then do the lookups and populate the rest of the fields in this database from the information in the record in the sql database. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, and I appreciate any help any of you can offer. Thank you!