Dataslinger

Hi all, could I get some best practices, pointers, any guidelines others use to estimate the time/billing for a client's custom FileMaker project? I've both under-estimated and over-estimated in the past. I have a project in front of me now I'm having trouble getting a fix on. Is there a by the field, by the tables, ny the relationships, by the reports - way of doing this? The complexitity needs to be figured in too. Any help would be most appreciated!

Stanley , perfect, thank you! - DS

OK, FMP 6! Say we have two datafiles.... one vendors, the other payments... in vendors we have a portal for showing the payments. In a 'status area' (browse mode)... along with date created/by and date modified/by... I'd like to show the total of payments per the vendor who's record we are viewing. Created a "total" subsummary field in payments, and then showed a merge field in vendors - no joy as it totals ALL vendor payments... I just want to show this vendor's payments. This is easy to do in a report, but want to show it on-screen in browse mode in the vendor's record. Thanks in advance.

I know FMP is a live commit database... is there some way to script or otherwise setup a contact record, so that at the end of data entry one is presented with the option to "Save" the record, go back and "Edit" the record, or "Discard" the record - which is like an immediate delete. And when editing an existing contact record options to "Save" or "Discard" changes? (even if it looks like that to end user). Thanks in advance.

Hope this is the right forum... In FileMaker 6 through 9... if one has existing Sorts that are based on relationships, it makes the existing Sort names in the left side sort box too long to read what they are. Is there someway to see the existing Sort names, without having to redo the entire Sort order? The Sort display box is too short to display long names.. and there's no horizontal scroll bar. I hope this is just me missing something and not such an oversight in the program that's not been corrected. Thanks in advance!

Hi Fenton, I was wondering if you could lend more assistance on this one. We've gotten the Global field of the ContactID to appear in the Milestones data file... though at times it seems to not track correctly. So now, though I can do this so easily in FMP 8.x's relationships, I'm trying to get a combination ContactID key AND Milestone's status (completed or pending)... to setup a relationship so I can use a filtered portal. The failure seems to be that a calculation of _g_ContactID & MilestoneStatus, will not give me the ID number as it's a global and cannot be indexed. The target FileMaker for this, is from my profile... FMP6. So I need way to make happen in FMP6, though I can do already in FMP8.x. Yes I know we should upgrade to FMP 8.x but that's not going to happen now. Thanks for further guidance on this.

Fenton, thanks for the help. I think I've gotten the global field working, to bring the ID key into other tables. And... yes, I will try more to 'wrap my mind around Global field usage' - good point! Thanks

Hummm, doing a criteria ADD to a relationship in FMP 8.5 for portal filtering is so easy. How does one go about achieving this in relationships using FMP 6 ? :o

Fenton, it must be Friday and I'm just not getting something. OK - create _g_ContactID (global) in Contacts - then is it "Set Field [_g_ContactID, _kpContactID" as a script in Contacts file as well? Each time I run the script, depending on which record I'm on, it updates the auto-entered, serial numbered ContactID. Are the field and script in the right place? Now when I try to bring the Global field into Milestones... I don't see it. Thanks for the input.

Fenton, thanks for the quick response. I'm not quite following you on this. Say the Contacts table has a _kp_ContactID field which is a Number field, it is Indexed, and it's Auto-Enter - in that it's a serial number, incremented by 1. So this is the primary key. I don't see how to make this a Global field which I can then "parse" over into Grants (as they're created) into the _kf_GrantsContactsID field and then into "Milestones" per Grant as they're created. I'm sure it's a simple process, but confess to not understanding 'the how' of what your suggesting. Thanks again!

Fenton, this is so clear. Thanks for the time to post. Now, one additional issue I'm having with the keys... in creating a new Grant related to a Contact, I copy then paste the ContactID key number into the new grant record via a script. Then when I create a new Milestone for the Grant record, I copy the GrantID key into the new Milestone record also via a script. What's the best way to carry forward the ContactID key into the Milestone record? Seems one can only do one copy-paste in script... and I've tried looked up and calculated to either bring this forward from Contacts or Grants, but no joy so far. Thanks again.

OK, we'll ask for 'cream of the crop' that runs under FM6. If, you want to list some newer solutions that are say FM 8/8.5 solutions, please do so. Right now there is near term a need to stay with a FM6 solution. And no, not looking for a $10,000 solution.

OK - in short, we have a database to track grants. So there's contact table, a grants table, and a milestones table. We have relationships that tie the contacts to the grants and then relationships that connect the grants to the milestones. Under the main - Contacts layout, I want to have two tabs, - one tab portal that lists all the "pending" milestones per this contact, and one tab portal that lists all the "completed" milestones. I'm trying to figure what fields (calc) and what relationships I need to set up to do this. So I want a relationship between Contacts and Milestones that filters/separates by whether the Milestones are completed or pending. I'm having trouble connecting Contacts to Milestones.

Hi - I thought we had posted this, but do not see it. Is there a recommendation for a FileMaker solution that does issues/incident reporting and tracking for IT/technology issues, that also runs under FMP6? Looking for the cream of the crop. TIA

Hi all, have you found or are using, any "must have" tools for converting/updating FileMaker 5.5/6 database solutions into FileMaker 8.x versions? Any suggestions for tools or techniques to do the best and fastest job of upgrading an older solution would be appreciated. - Thanks

Hi all, is there a consensus of a great FileMaker based tech support, issues reporting, and tracking database to support an offices interface with their IT consultant? Would like suggestions that run under FM 7/8/8.5... AND FM 6, if possible. Thanks in advance!

So, if the ports are an issues, I assume then adding a different separate computer box, one still cannot run/host FM5.5 and FM8 servers on the same network? Is there any way to achieve this? So a critical FM 5.5/6 can be used until converted... and newer FM 8.x apps can be served? Thanks

Hi, we have an client running a FMP 6 solution off a FMS 5.5 server. Runs just fine. Windows 2003. It has low-moderate usage. Can we install and run FMS 8, to run two more low-moderate use databases, on the same server, at the same time? Seems to me it should work just fine, as long as server resources aren't taxed. Is anyone doing this successfully? TIA

Hi JS22 - this seems to be on-track and it appears to work just fine as I enter fresh data in your sample database... where I think this breaks... is importing existing data sets into it... the table with Donor and Total - has the correct total - but there are multiple instances of the Donor (name). I need one donor - matched with an accurate total amount. Still playing with it though - thanks - Dataslinger.

Apologies if this posts twice - I thought it went through - but now do not see it. Given a dataset of Donors and Payments on one flat file. So you might have: Steve Smith - $200 Steve Smith - $150 Steve Smith - $100 We need to total the amounts for each donor. Steve Smith - $450 Can do with a sub summary field when sorted by "Donor" and it looks good in FileMaker - but want a field that holds total so this can be exported to an Excel file that simply has one record for "donor" and total "amount". Is there an easy calc field to total the amounts by Donor? TIA - Dataslinger

For FileMaker 5.5 deploys, has there been anything to address window size and window location issues that works well and is easy to setup and possibly freeware, in a plugin?

SD, thanks for the specs sheet.... so the requirements read: "•Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Professional (10 or fewer users only)." since Windows XP is like Windows 2000 version 2... I would assume FMS 5 "should" work on it - but does it? Is anyone running it successfully, FM Server 5, on Windows XP?

Does anyone know definitively, if FileMakerServer 5 will run on a Windows XP Pro box? If not, what level Windows OS will FMServer 5 run on? If it will - what potential problems, if any? TIA!