jcohen

1) Create a text field named: ssn 2) Under the field options, click on the "validation" tab 3) Click "Validated By Calculation" and enter the below calculation and check the box "Validate only if field has been modified": Length(ssn) = 11 and PatternCount("0123456789", Left( ssn , 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 2, 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 3, 1)) > 0 and Middle( ssn, 4, 1) = "-" and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 5, 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 6, 1)) > 0 and Middle( ssn, 7, 1) = "-" and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 8, 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 9, 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 10, 1)) > 0 and PatternCount("0123456789", Middle( ssn , 11, 1)) > 0 or Length( ssn) = 0 4) Check the box "Strict: Do not allow override of validation 5) Check the box "Display custom message if validation fails" and enter the below text: There is a problem with your social security number format. Please click REVERT. 6) You're done! If the validation fails, it will force the user to click Revert. I have attached a file that has this as example as well as a phone format, state format and the very useful state code and name... don't expect your users to know all the state codes. Good luck! format.zip

Kurt, Thanks for the reply. We seem to feel here that FileMaker doesn't fragment too much, but wanted to hear from others out there what their feeling is on the subject. We are looking into moving our tables onto a Ram Disk. Any advice in this area?

I currently have two Mac G3s both running FileMaker Server 5.0, each hosting 50 files. Each has anywhere between 20-50 users accessing the files. My question is regarding server maintenance. How often should I defrag the hard drive for each server?

Thanks for the tip. Such a simple solution. THANKS!

Can I use the Set Field script step to set a date field to blank? For example, I have a field called birthDate defined as a date field. The field is populated for the current record with a date of 1/1/2002. If I want to remove the date so that the field is no longer populated with data, how would I do this using the Set Field script step? If I specify that the Set Field script step use quotes ("") as its result, the field is then populated with an invalid date. The technique of using quotes ("") with no data between the quotes works with text and number fields.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, there is a reason for a having a relationship on a field that has data greater than 20 characters. In the environment where I use FileMaker, we have the need for relationships that use concatenations. Because of this <21 character indexing limitation, this severely limits our options.

Created 2 files that had 1 field (text, indexed). Related these 2 files on their 1 field. Each file has 1 record. File 1 had the data in its 1 field of 111222333444555666771 The 2nd file had data in its 1 field of 111222333444555666772 Notice that the last character is different, yet FileMaker believes that these records are related. After testing, FileMaker only checks the first 20 characters of a relationship. This problem is also true for checking for duplicates as well. Is anyone aware of this? Is this documented anywhere?

After several additional tests after this post, this is NOT a file size issue, in fact it is a name length issue. Apparently, through my tests, if the length of the file name is >13 characters (not including the extension name ".PDF"), the script will fail. If the file name length of the attachment is <14 characters, the script will work. Has anyone run into this? Any explanations?

I am using a loop with Send Mail script step to send emails to 700 records. I use Outlook 2000 on a Windows XP Pro machine using FileMaker 5.0 v3. This works great and I have no problems. When I alter the script to attach a PDF that is over 100 KB in size, the script runs, but no email is generated. If I alter the script to attach a PDF that is <100 KB, the script works fine. I have tested on several machines, all with the same result. Is there an attachment size limit for FileMaker using the Send Mail script?

I would like to create a calculated field that can give me the date for day 10 searching through the related records. Example: Jon Doe has worked for 20 days. There are several records that have a start date and a stope date. Let's say that record one has a start date of 1/1/02 and a stop date of 1/5/02. This gives me 5 days worked. The next record has a start date of 3/1/02 and a stop date of 3/15/02 giving me 15 days worked for a grand total of 20 days worked. The calculated field would need to return a date of 3/5/02; day number 10 of the 20 days worked. Any help would be appreciated.

We had this exact same problem at my work. Our IT staff tried all the above mentioned solutions. As it turned out, it was a VERY simple error. Someone (who knows better) was placing FM Server program in the background. When we noticed this and moved FM Server program to be the foreground application, speeds were back to normal. FM Server will use little to no computer resources when the application is in the background. I am sure you have tried this, but it wasn't mentioned above.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I don't think I have that font installed. Is it actually called "Password" or is there another name for it?

Is there a way to mask the data being entered into a field? The best example is when Filemaker asks for a password on a file startup and masks the password being entered. I imagine that you would create a calculated field and place it on top of the field you want to mask. I am not sure what the calculation would be for this field... Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thank you so much!!! I will talk to our IT people and post the results.

Would the speed of FileMaker Server 5.0 increase if we were to add 512 MB of memory to our dedicated G4 FileMaker Server? FileMaker Server 5.0 is the only program running and is the foreground application. We currently have 256 MB memory in our G4. Mac OS takes about 45 MB of memory to run and FileMaker Server 5.0 is using about 45 MB of memory. This G4 is dedicated to running only FileMaker Server 5.0.