istephen

Thanks for your reply. I've been continuing to work on it, but in some ways I'm more confused than ever. I want to be able to assign a specific client (a subset of the companies I'm in contact with) in my central Project table / layout. I am getting bogged down in difficulties with the "Display Data from" side of the "Field/Control Setup" dialog box. I think that Value Lists may be part of the solution, but "Specify Fields for Value List" in the "Edit Value" dialog box. This is not as user-friendly as Filemaker claims it is!! I'm trying to keep it all as simple as possible. Thanks.

I've been working flat out to create what I've done so far, but am stuck. I'm using another file (MagnumCh7.fp7 from Filemaker Pro 8: The Missing Manual). The related fields from different tables work properly in it; changes are reflected in the other layouts. I can not duplicate this process in my own file (New DB.fp7), despite an exhaustive comparison of the two files. They're both attached, but "New DB.fp7" is the one I'm concerned about. Does the Relationship Graph make sense? Also - to make it clearer later, is it OK to have different names in tables for the IDs which are connected (to make it clearer to me which is the primary key, and which is the foreign key? (i.e. instead of Bev_Sector_ID, would it make sense to have it called Bev_Sector_PK in the first table, and Bev_Sector_FK in the second table?) If anyone is able to advise me on this - thanks for the help! NEW_DB.fp7.zip MagnumCh7.fp7.zip

I have been struggling with trying to understand the basic concepts of modeling - i.e. entities, keys, etc. I have been creating AppleWorks databases since about 1993, and need to port it all to Filemaker for greater stability (and because AppleWorks won't work forever). If I have to, I'll create flat files, but would like to use more of Filemaker 8.5's capabilities, including web publishing, so I can access my databases if I need to while mobile. I want to keep it as simple as possible!! I have no inventory. My business is essentially recruiting and consulting: providing staff for the wine industry. I have a client/prospect file (about 2000 records) (AppleWorks), and a similar file which contains the people who work for me (or could), about 1000 records so far. I have a third file (currently a spreadsheet) which contains all the projects I've done (200 so far). If the file can handle it, I could put all the projects in one table; or is it better to have one for each year? I've been envisioning the structure as one table for clients/prospects; one table for staff; one table for projects. I think that invoices could be a view of the project table? The financial aspect is on a project OR hourly basis, with project expenses passed onto clients with no markup. (My project fee is higher than what I pay staff; that's the only profit.) I hope this all makes sense. I am stuck with not understanding the basic structure of relational databases, despite having done lots of reading, and trying to build this. Any help is appreciated!