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I've got FM server on an iMac server with three clients on the network. Two powerbooks and another iMac. One of the powerbooks and the iMac can both access the files without issue. The other powerbook client has upgraded to FM 6 and can't access the files at all. The list of files comes up under local hosts, but when we tried to open any of them, the password screen flashes for about a second and then disappears and then nothing happens. We even copied the files to his hard drive off of the server and had the same issue,,, Additionally, when we try to go to preferences in Filemaker, the screen pops up for a second and then disappears. We sat there and reinstalled FileMaker 6 and had the same issues....So in truth, I'm not sure that this is a server issue, a FM 6 issue or an OSX 10.2.6 issue, Any ideas?

Hey it really does work! Wow. Thank you both for your help.

Yes I am in browse mode.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say they each belong to the artist? If you mean that each contract/record only has one artist attributed to it then yes, but I'm not sure how that solves my problem. I put the Artist field in the leading subsummary, and I'm still getting 15 seperate letters when I do a find for one Artist from January1-January 31. ie I'm not generating a list of all 15 dates into one letter which is what I'm trying to achieve. Do I have the body set up wrong? Do I need to create summary fields for the date, venue, etc.? Please help me!

LiveOak- Either I'm misinterpereting the instructions or I've miscommunicated what I'm trying to accomplish. The part that I don't understand is how to generate the list of dates and venues in the body of the letter. If each contract is it's own record with an Artist field, a Date field and fields for Venue, Venue City, and Venue State, how do I get all the dates and venue info for a particular artist to show up as a list in the body of one record? I included both subsummaries around the body, and then put the following fields in the body: Date, Venue, Venue City, Venue State. I then sorted by Artist and ended up with 5000 letters with one date each. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks!

Really having trouble kickstarting my brain on this one. I've got a contract file for a talent agency. They represent a roster of about 35 musicians. When they procure a date for an artist a contract is issued. Each contract is its own record in the file. There are about 5000 records dating back to the year 2000. This includes dates for all 35 artists. Each month, they have to put a letter together for each of their artists listing their itinerary for the next 4-6 months. Since the data is already in the file, this should be easy, but I can't figure it out. Should I be doing it in a seperate related file? Can it be done as a layout in the original file? Portals? I welcome and appreciate any and all suggestions .

Happy Holidays to everyone. Working on a contract database for a client and I'm having a problem with a deposit calculation. The way the system works is when a deposit is received for a contract, the date and amount are entered into two seperate fields. The agency gets a % of the deposit which is taken off the top, the rest going into an escrow account. I was able to set up a calc which compared the deposit to the agency's % and then split it accordingly into an agency % field and an escrow field. The problem I have is this. About 5% of the time, the agency will receive deposits in two shifts. There is a separate date and amount field for the instance of a second deposit. How do I alter my current calculation, so that it will calculate based on the first deposit being entered, but will then alter that info if a second deposit comes into play. I'll give an example: Let's say the total amount of the contract is $5000.00, the deposit should be 10% of that or $500, and the agency's % is 15% or $750. A deposit comes in for $450 on Jan 1. Because it is less than 15% of the contract, all of that goes directly into the agency % field. On Jan 15, a second deposit of $450 comes in. The two should be added and compared to the %, and then 750 goes into the % field and 150 into escrow...This is where my skills are failing me... Should I be using an OR, an If... I can't figure it out. If there is only one deposit it works great. The calc is something like this: If (Deposit Amount) is less than or equal to Contract Amount*Agency%, Deposit Amount, Contract Amount*Agency%)... How do I factor in the second variable, so that it takes a second deposit into account and changes the results? All help is welcome. Thanks!

Hey Tom- If there is a way to use lookups from the same file, then I must be doing it wrong... Here's how the original file is laid out: VENUE VENUE ADDRESS VENUE CITY / VENUE STATE /VENUE ZIP VENUE PHONE / VENUE FAX THe way I set it up had everything but VENUE coming from the related file: VENUE :VENUE ADDRESS ::VENUE CITY /::VENUE STATE /::VENUE ZIP ::VENUE PHONE /::VENUE FAX As mentioned in my initial post, this works unless the VENUE is new at which point it takes the data and puts it in a new place. Last night, I created six new fields in my current file: VENUE ADDRESS LOOKUP, VENUE CITY LOOKUP, etc... These were set up to lookup from the related file fields, as that was the only way I could get the lookup to work. When I placed these in, all the lookup fields were blank. So am I missing a step here? Do I need calculations as opposed to lookups? Do I need a scriptof some sort to make all this work? I'm getting more confused by the day...

Jason- Thanks for the reply. Of course my data is backed up and safe, while I may not always be the brightest light on the tree, I've learned that much from experience... I had some time to play around with this tonight. It seems lookups don't work in a self join, or at leat not as far as I could tell. When I created a new field "VENUE ADDRESS LOOKUP" looking up from the related (self) ADDRESS field, the field in all records was blank... Also found out that in order for the user to be able to enter into a field, I had to keep allow creation of related records checked. So I'm back to square one with a system that almost works... Anyone else have any helpful hints? Thanks in advance

I have a file I'm working on for a talent agency that receives offers from promoters for their musicians. Each offer has venue information. There are currently over 10000 records in the file and most of the venues they work with are already in there (around 3000 unique names). I tried to do a self join so that when they entered the name of the venue, the address and contact information would automatically enter. The relationship is setup as selfbyvenue, with the name of venue field: VENUE as the link. Allow creation of related records is selected. I then placed the fields from the relationship into the address and contact area. It works like a charm if the venue is already in the file. If it is a new venue, as soon as they enter the address info, it dissappears from the current record and creates a new record with just the venue. They then have to go back into the working record and retype the name which is not ideal. Is there a way to fix this? Should I be looking up instead of dropping the fields straight in, and does this require creating a new field for the lookup? Any help is greatly appreciated...

Keeping a contact file in filemaker pro. At the bottom of the layout I have 2 fields, the first contains the last date I spoke to that individual and the second are notes from the conversation. Currently these are repeating fields with 20 repetitions each. Ideally I'd like the most recent conversation to always show up on top of this list. Is there a way to do this with the current setup? If not is there a way to do it? What about a way that whatever Itype in those fields gets added as the top line of a "log" field?

I work for a booking agency. We represent musicians (Artists). We keep a calendar for each one in separate excel docs. I hope this explains what an "artist calendar" is. Does it help in answering my initial question in any way?

OK I've got 20 artist calendars in 20 separate excel files. What I'd like to do is pull them all into 1 Filemaker file, each calendar being a layout in the file. Any way this can be done without reinventing the wheel?

So nobody knows of a step by step guide for building a calendar in filemaker? After seeing how many people are after this kind of solution, you'd think someone would have put it in a book somewhere...

Thanks for the response... I suppose I am looking for something simple, although ideally it would have month and day views. I'm really starting with basic skills here. When you say "a record for each month, and for each record to have, say 42 records, within it" are you really talking about fields? I really could benefit from a reccomendation for a "how-to" book.

So I've searched all the posts, I'm not sure why it wouldn't make more sense to build my own calendar solution from the ground up than to purchase one and then try to incorporate that into my way of thinking. Especially if all I really want is to be able to view booked dates in week and month views. Anybody know of either a site, tech article, or book that would get me on my way?

Does this actually work for you? Have you tried it in a calculation field? I copied and pasted yours exactly as you had it captKurt. I still get the same error highlighting the same instance... I'm missing something here. What's worse, is I don't think this will actually work as expected for my database, even if it did, it's not what I really want to do anyway. Let me go back to the beginning and try to explain my setup. I currently determine if an invoice is past due using the following script: Enter Find Mode Insert Text [DEPOSIT IN", "="] Insert Calculated Result [DUE DATE 1, DateToText(Today-14)&"..."&DateToText(Today)] Perform Find Basically, I'm retrieving empty values in the DEPOSIT IN: field for a range of dates (in this case, the past two weeks). If the field is empty, the deposit has not been received and since I'm only looking at past dates, I already know they're past due. I suppose I may not have been specific enough in my initial request. What I was hoping to do is on any given day if the deposits for that day have not been received have a message pop up telling me which deposits are due. I've been unable to get Show Message to include any information about a specific record, or I could create a script that would do it using that.

That's really not the case. I was confused. Deposit In: is actually a field with date values. A date only gets entered if a deposit has been paid, hence the unpaid deposits are shown by an empty Deposit In: field. I did go back and enter the calculation copying and pasting what you have below and still get the same error. "This field cannot be found" highlighting the first status instance. Are there too many "(" marks, not enough? I also don't know what this function "<>" returns. I'll admit to being fairly uneducated here. Perhaps you could dumb it down a bit for me?

Thank you for the quick reply. I was actually able to run a nice script for the e-mail problem using SMTPit. What a great plugin! I had a tougher time figuring out the calculation field. I wrote it like this : Case (Status <> DEPOSIT IN: and (Status (CurrentDate) - DUE DATE 1) > 30, "Past Due", "") "Deposit In" is my "paid" field and Due Date 1 is the date the deposit is due. Filemaker keeps highlighting the first Status and telling me that "This field can't be found". Also, I suppose the 30 is assuming that my clients have 30 days past the due date to make good?

I'm using Filemaker 5.5 on a Mac OSX 10.1.5. I have a database for collecting payments. I want to be notified when payments are past due. While I can go in and perform a find to locate this information, I'm trying to make my life easier by automating the process . I'm actually trying to do 2 things here. 1. have an alert in filemaker come up everytime the date in the "due date" field matches the current date without anything in the "paid" field. 2. Send an e-mail to the customer alerting him of the late payment (ideally CC:ing the info to me) Not sure if these are easy fixes or age-old problems, but would appreciate any help.