clrblue

Ummm... I tried that... good suggestion. But it was a no-go. The field is not in a group. Somehow this thing is shadowed and I just can't figure it out! What can I try next?? I'm going nuts!! TIA! Charisma

I have a field in FM 5 that refuses to de-shadow itself. I have checked in Object Effects and in Borders... nothing is set to shadow. Any clues as to how I can fix this? TIA! --Charisma

Well, that's a bummer, but I appreciate your response. Thank you!

OK. I understand now. I have one more question, though. If I run a Create/Replace script to fill in the date for the currently existing records to create this field and populate it, will it enter each record's specific creation date or will it set them all to today because that is when the script is being run? TIA! You guys have been so much help!! --Charisma

So a user ould have to specifically enter a date in a field called "creationdate" or something? And only then will it be searchable? There isn't an internal Filemaker variable called Creationdate or whatever? I just want to create a find based on the creation date of existing records. How would someone go about this?

No wonder I seem to be having a problem. LOL. Anyway, so if I was to build a script for this Find, what might it look like? The CreationDate(date) function, I mean. TIA! Charisma

OK, so maybe this is the lamest question ever, but how can I do a find for all records that were created on a certain date? Does Filemaker 5 keep track of this? What is the field name? Does it have to be included in the layout to be serachable? What is the best way to build this find? I tried looking through the forum but counldn't find the answer to this question... probably because it's a really eay solution and a no-brainer and no one else needs help with it. Still, I could use the boost... so please post an answer if you can... Thanks! --Charisma

I was wondering... I am having trouble program sharing FM 5.5... is it a networkable program? We have only installed it on one computer, we are just trying to get everyone to access it. If it is... what settings are we missing? We have activated File Sharing, activated the proper groups and set the executables and proper files to be shared. Any ideas? Thanks! KC

Please see my post in FM Pro thread: http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB26&Number=47191&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=186&fpart=1 thank you!

I would like to be able to take a PDF form and use that as data entry to a FM Pro 5.5 db. I would also like to be able to output data from FM Pro 5.5 to a PDF form. Is this possible? If so, can I connect them without using a Web server?

I was wondering if it is possible to connect Acrobat 5 (Mac) forms to FM Pro 5.5 (Mac) without using a web server?? If so, what are the steps involved? And if it cannot be done without a Web server, what server could I use with OS9.1 and what would be the steps from there? (I am normally a PC person and am finding myself floundering a bit... your help is appreciated) TIA, KC

Hi there... yes, I am STILL working on the billing and employee db I have been working on, but actually, I can see the light now. Anyway, I do have a question, if someone has the time... Sometimes in an accounting system, although standard values are pulled to a field via calculations, the financial person in charge of data entry may want to change the value. Is it possible to create a calc field that allows a user to change the value? I can't imagine this hasn't come up previously, so I am hoping that one of you will be able to help me. TIA, KC

Cool. Thanks, Kurt.

I am trying to get a count of unique employee ID numbers for those employees who not only work at a specific site, but whom also have an AM work schedule. In the employees file, I have all of their personal info as well as their expected regular schedules. So, I developed the following CASE statement, trying to get the count (Monday AM is the field that holds each employee's Monday arrival time): CASE ( Site = "Austin" and Monday AM > 0, Count(Employee ID), Site = "Rochester" and Monday AM > 0, Count(Employee ID), Site = "San Francisco" and Monday AM > 0, Count(Employee ID), Site = "Nashville" and Monday AM > 0, Count(Employee ID), "" ) I placed the field in the Sub-Summary field of my report where I had grouped the report by site. All I received was a count of the first instance of the calc that made it true... so all counts are "1". This is inaccurate. How can I make it count all instances of the statements? TIA, KC

I am still working on the ledger I have been building, but I am very close now to completing it. I currently have a situation where a Calculation field called "Debit" will not hold the value I give it. I have worn out my patience with it and will now hope that after some explanation, someone here will be able to help me. I have three files: "employees" - Holds all info about the company's employees; each employee has a unique ID. In addition, this file holds the general "schedule" that the employee has agreed to, as well as calculations of how many hours he is working per week and his regular monthly pay. Important fields are: Weekly Hours (calc) - Holds the number of hours that an employee works based on a schedule they have agreed to Monthly Payment - this is the field "Regular Payment" from the "fees" file. Holds the employee's regular monthly pay based on the hours they have agreed to work based on the amount in the "Weekly Hours" field (obviously these will fluctuate, but not here). "fees" - Holds all info on various fees attributed to employee expenses. Important fields are: Fee Type - Types of fees, for ex. Regular, Extra Hours, etc. Cost Per Unit - Cost per Fee Type. Regular is the only different type which has next to it a field called "Weekly Hours" and then fee amounts in the fields "Cost Per Hour" & "Cost per Month"... and which Regular Payment is attributed to that employee is based on their Weekly Hours. The other Fee Types are simply based on their "Cost Per Hour". "ledger line items" - Is the place where ledger information for the employees will be entered. The important fields are: Amount (number) - will hold the quantity of the fee or, as in the case of a "Regular" type fee, the Weekly Hours Employee ID (text) - unique alphanumeric text is entered here manually so that the fee will be linked to a specific employee; this field is the basis of a relationship between the "employees" file and the "ledger line items" files called "ledger line items to employees". Fee Date (date) - Date fee occurred or is attributed to. Entered manually. Fee Type (text) - Populated by a value list based on the contents of the field "Fee Type" in the "fees" file. This field is also the basis of the relationship between the "fees" and "ledger line items" files called "ledger line items to fees". Credit (number; formatted as currency) - will hold any amount attributed to either an account or a line item entered into the ledger. Entered manually. Billing Cycle (calc) - automatically figures the billing cycle that a fee will be attributed to based on it's date. Non-editable. Notes (text) - A misc. field to hold any comments or what have you related to a specific transaction. Subtotal (calc) - Credit - Debit Debit (calc) - This is the field that I am having trouble with. It doesn't seem to want to hold any info I give it. I have tried the following calculation: If (Fee Type = "Regular", ledger line items to employees::Monthly Payment, Amount * ledger line items to fees::Cost Per Unit Nothing shows up in the box for a "Regular" fee, although all other fees calculate properly. I made sure that the ledger line items db could retrieve both the "Weekly Hours" and the "Monthly Payment" from the "employees" file by creating two new dummy calc fields and displaying their contents in them through the relationship "ledger line items to employees". I must have tried 1500 variations of the above calculation without success. I even tried changing the relationship between the "fees" file and the "line item ledger" file to a new field ("key") I created in each: Fee Type & Weekly Hours It still didn't work. Any and all help would be appreciated. Thank you! KC

Good idea. I think I'll give it a go. Thanjks!

Without an EOF or a Loop...Until construction or a For loop, I am unsure as to how to create a script so that it runs until it has applied it's results to each & every record in the db. Any help would be appreciated. TIA, KC

I have been going through this template that comes with FM pro 5.5, but I am still unclear how the Time Billing example works. Are the items entered into the Line Item Billing db and only viewed through the portal in the Time Billing db? TIA, KC

I have a situation where I have two db that must relate to each other by two fields... for example, "title" and "location", and it needs to pull the info from a record to fill other fields if and only if those two fields match each other. I tried the following without success in a field called address. RelationshipA was built between db1 and db2 through the location fields. RelationshipB was built through the title fields: "address" field calc: If ( (title = ::relationshipA:title) and (location = ::relationshipB:location), ::relationshipA:address, "" ) I am not getting any errors, but nor am I getting anything in the address field. I also just tried using relationshipA, thinking maybe that since location and location were already related, i didn't need to reiterate it: "address" field calc: If ( title = ::relationshipA:title, ::relationshipA:address, "" ) Still didn't work. I have related info before and am really not sure what I am doing wrong. I welcome all advice & suggestions. Thanks! KC

I am creating a ledger-like environment to enter fees that our clients accrue. I not only want to keep track of their credits & debits, but also keep a running balance. I was thinking maybe I could create a global that keeps the previous balance in mind and add it to the current balance, but before I knew it, I was lost. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Thanks! KC

Is it possible just to write a script that checks that for every unique id in one db, there is a record created using that unique id in another? I just don't know the logic without being able to use a FOR loop or a WHERE clause. And I don't want to have to rely on user input. It would be super cool if the script would automatically run everytime that either db was opened or if a change was made to either. TIA, KC

How can I validate the contents of a field based on the contents of another field? I tried (in validate by calculation): If( field1 = "yes", field2 <> "yes", "") but it didn't work. And then I thought, what exactly is the difference between putting a calc in the validate by calc area rather than just making the field a calc field? And then I remembered that I have other info I want to keep in that field and that I just want to make sure that both fields cannot = "yes" at the same time. What am I doing wrong? TIA, KC

I agree... this was extremely frustrating. You would assume that if FileMaker has a Date field specificcallyd esigned to hold dates AND it only takes the dates entered in that field in the mm/dd/yyyy format, that it would store them that way. But no. So, here's the thing then... why use a FileMaker Date field when you could use a number field with a mask? Kinda weird.

There is a part of the current project I am working on that I need help with... in even thinking about designing. I must make a db that will monitor attendance of staff members. Every day, the time cards are pulled and they must be entered into the billing system I am building. How exactly would you think to construct a db of this sort? It can pull the employee info from the employee db by employee number... so that's set... but there have actually been many occasions where I have wanted to add this kind of info to a db and not sure how to go about it. I don't want to make a field for every day of the year... or a field in the employee file with every day of the year in it & the times they worked each day... too inefficient. I know I am missing something HUGE here, and I know this question is seriously naive, but I seriously need help thinking the right way here. Just a nudge should do it 'cause I've hit a brain block. I do not want the user to have to remember all of the employee ID's, so I suppose I will need a script that will initially fill the db with the employee IDs add then some sort of way on each employee's record to record what days they have been in attendance. And that is the part I am having difficulty with. I want the user just to be able to cycle through the employee records and add the dates they were present & their hours... I want it to be super simple. All input/advice would be appreciated. TIA, KC

OK, ppl. I know I must be doing something stupid because this is just not working. I am building a ledger-like layout so that the company I am consulting for can interact with a computerized billing system. Anyway, it was moving along realy well, until I reached the weirdest situation... one I originally thought would be cake. Before getting into the situation itself, let me first explain a bit about the files I am working with: In this one db called Ledger 2002, I have many fields, two of which must be created so that they interact with each other: Date of Fee - Date field.<br><br> Billing Cycle - Calc field. This field is related to another db called Billing Cycle 2002 through a matching field called Cycle Name. The relationship is called ledger to billing cycle. Anyway, in the Billing Cycle 2002 db, 3 fields exist. The values for these fields were manually entered; no calculations were performed. It is a static db with the following fields: lower - Date field. Contains the lower value of the date range that is a predetermined billing cycle. For example: 8/15/2002, 9/15/2002, etc.<br><br> upper - Date field. Contains the upper value of the date range that is a predetermined billing cycle. For example: 9/14/2002, 10/14/2002, etc.<br><br> Cycle Name - Text field. Contains the billing cycle's text id. Billing cycle in this case is determined from the 15th of one month to the 14th of the next. For example: a cycle with a lower value of 8/15/2002 and an upper value of 9/14/2002 would make this field "September 2002". OK, back to my OBJECTIVE I want to make it so that when a user types a date in the Date of Fee field, the Billing Cycle field automatically generates. Billing Cycle must also update if the value in Date of Fee field is changed.<br><br> ATTEMPT #1 In my first attempt, I used the the relationship ledger to billing cycle (of course in FM, it is altogether and not on separate lines): Case ( IsEmpty (Date of Fee), "", (Date of Fee >= ledger to billing cycle::lower) and (Date of Fee <= ledger to billing cycle::upper), ledger to billing cycle::Cycle Name, "" ) ATTEMPT #1 - ISSUES & QUESTIONS If I do this, FileMaker highlights ledger to billing cycle::lower and says that I can't use it here because it will cause a "circular definition". I am confused as to why... I related Billing Cycle and Cycle Name, NOT Billing Cycle and upper or lower... I really like the idea of having a separate static db to hold the ranges of the billing cycle and the cycle names... that way I only need update the db if there needs to be a revision. So how could I rework the relationship so that it would work? ATTEMPT #2 In my second attempt at solving this problem, I tried entering the following CASE statement that DID NOT use the relationship ledger to billing cycle: Case ( IsEmpty (Date of Fee), "", (Date of Fee >= 8/15/2002) and (Date of Fee <= 9/14/2002), "September 2002", (Date of Fee >= 9/15/2002) and (Date of Fee <= 10/14/2002), "October 2002", (Date of Fee >= 10/15/2002) and (Date of Fee <= 11/14/2002), "November 2002", (Date of Fee >= 11/15/2002) and (Date of Fee <= 12/14/2002), "December 2002", (Date of Fee >= 12/15/2002) and (Date of Fee <= 1/14/2003), "January 2003", (Date of Fee >= 1/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 2/14/2003), "February 2003", (Date of Fee >= 2/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 3/14/2003), "March 2003", (Date of Fee >= 3/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 4/14/2003), "April 2003", (Date of Fee >= 4/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 5/14/2003), "May 2003", (Date of Fee >= 5/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 6/14/2003), "June 2003", (Date of Fee >= 6/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 7/14/2003), "July 2003", (Date of Fee >= 7/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 8/14/2003), "August 2003", (Date of Fee >= 8/15/2003) and (Date of Fee <= 9/14/2003), "September 2003", "" ) ATTEMPT #2 - ISSUES & QUESTIONS Attempt #2 didn't work either. When I place a date in the Date of Fee field, nothing comes up in the Billing Cycle field. Even when I revised Attempt #2 so that I left off the IsEmpty (Date of Fee), "", part, I simply receive a standard response of "September 2002" in the Billing Cycle field. And, more importantly, no matter what I change the Date of Fee field to be, the Billing Cycle field does NOT change accordingly. I also tried Attempt #2 with nested IF statements and didn't get any farther. So... what is wrong with my CASE statement? TROUBLESHOOTING CASE STATEMENTS Using the online Help in FileMaker 5.5, I attempted to find the problem myself. So I used the simplest Case statement I could think of, as shown here: Case ( Date of Fee = 8/7/1974, "My Birthday", "Not My Birthday" ) I couldn't get this to work, either. I am very confused. Any help on these issues will be greatly appreciated. TIA! KC