Limore

so there is an inventory TO and a customer wants TO. On the customer wants TO, a person can choose a customer and then pick from 4 drop down lists to select the item, diameter, manufacturer and model and a portal filters the inventory that is available for that criteria. I am using the crazy portal filter there with script triggers on the drop downs to refresh the portal. I am including two screen shots. the portal i am interested (well both) in is the one on the inventory page that will show all customers that are interested in a particular item. This would be pertinent to do a mass mailing to all who are interested. with the current portal doing the wacky filtering, i am afraid it would not produce the right results for a mass email out. what i would truly like to do is have a relationship where an empty field (ie diameter) on customer wants can match to ANY (diameter) in the inventory TO. Item or SC or sort codes will always be selected but the other three fields could remain blank. Limore

So i have an inventory database and a customer wants table where you can specify what they are looking for. There is a list of 4 criteria (item, diameter, manufacturer and model) where the item always has a value while the other fields may be left blank. On the customer wants side, i have the portal filtering to match the criteria chosen and a refresh portal script trigger on the 4 fields. It seems to work fine. Here it is for reference: Case ( Customer Wants::Diameter = "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = "" and Customer Wants::Model = "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Diameter = "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer ≠ "" and Customer Wants::Model ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Model = Inventory::Part Number and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = Inventory::Manufacturer and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Model = "" and Customer Wants::Diameter ≠ "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Diameter = Inventory::Diameter and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = Inventory::Manufacturer and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Manufacturer = "" and Customer Wants::Diameter ≠ "" and Customer Wants::Model ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Diameter = Inventory::Diameter and Customer Wants::Model = Inventory::Part Number and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Diameter = "" and Customer Wants::Model = "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Manufacturer = Inventory::Manufacturer and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Diameter = "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = "" and Customer Wants::Model ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Model = Inventory::Part Number and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Model = "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = "" and Customer Wants::Diameter ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Diameter = Inventory::Diameter and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; Customer Wants::Model ≠ "" and Customer Wants::Manufacturer ≠ "" and Customer Wants::Diameter ≠ "" and Customer Wants::SC ≠ ""; Customer Wants::Model = Inventory::Part Number and Customer Wants::Manufacturer = Inventory::Manufacturer and Customer Wants::Diameter = Inventory::Diameter and Customer Wants::SC = Inventory::SC; "" ) seems a little convoluted. The issue becomes when i want to put a portal on the inventory item and list customers interested in that item. Basically, if everything but the item is blank it should put the customer name in the portal of every instance of that item in the inventory layout and if other criteria are selected, it should only list the customer if they match all the criteria selected in the wants table. The filtering produces some unexpected results, namely that doing a search for customer inside the portal is inaccurate. I feel like the solution is staring me in the face and sticking it's tongue out at me and blowing a raspberry, but for the life of me I am stymied. Thanks for playing. and whatever you do, don't try and parse that ugly filter portal script. blech. LImore

I tried setting a field on the contacts table to a calc field named group as a calculation using the above function and parameters and evaluating the calc from the contacts table and it comes in empty. This is what I had been doing without it producing results. I am not sure why the function produces no results. Again this is using the supplied database that comes in the disk image with the addressbook manipulator plug in. Thanks for your help Chris. Unfortunately the function is not behaving correctly according to the documentation. I am sure that there is an explanation, I just don't know what it is. LImore

very simply trying to use either a custom function pcab getlistofvalues or via a relationship to associate the data regarding groups on the contacts label so that if a contact belongs to three groups, three groups are listed on his contact. And i have thus far been unsuccessful. So i want to operate this on the demo file that comes with the plug in. thanks, Limore

it is a function in the addrebook manipulator plugin and the productive demo file.

I have attempted to use the function getlistofvalues to get the contacts layout to list the groups that contact belongs to. Does anyone know how i might achieve this quickly without a deep dive into the relationship graph? thanks so much