Dynamic Growing horizontal Table View Layout

[cursulak]

I am fairly certain I can't do what I'd like in a native table view layout but thought I'd ask to clarify. 

What I am looking for a table view layout which will grow both vertically and horizontally based on data available. I can get the vertical growth no problem, however, horizontal is the trick. 

Here's the situation:

Tables: Company, Employees, Training, Required courses

Employees is currently setup as a join table between the other two such that I want it to list all the employees vertically, with the training they have taken. However, the company builds a list of courses that all of it's employees could potentially need to take. This I'd like to the horizontal growing growing list (dynamic columns) to the right of the worker name. If the company only has 10 courses it requires it's employees to take, then only 10 columns would show to the right of the name. If there is 100, then it would expand to show the 100.

I've got a logical field showing a check box if the training taken by an employee is both valid and matches the course category entered as required by the company. 

This of course I can get to work fine, except for the horizontal dynamic part which at this point I can't see to do in list or table view however I thought table might be the best. 

Am I correct this cannot be done, or can it be, but I'm not approaching the problem correctly with the right table structure or methodology?

Thanks in advance for thoughts. 

[comment]

There is no mechanism in Filemaker that would dynamically increase the number of columns shown on a layout. At most, you could design a layout (in List view, or in a portal) with the maximum expected number of columns, and dynamically hide the unused ones.

 

36 minutes ago, cursulak said:

Employees is currently setup as a join table between the other two

That doesn't make much sense to me.

 

36 minutes ago, cursulak said:

I want it to list all the employees vertically, with the training they have taken. However, the company builds a list of courses that all of it's employees could potentially need to take. This I'd like to the horizontal growing growing list (dynamic columns) to the right of the worker name.

In theory you could use a calculation field formatted as checkboxes and make it very wide. In practice, however, ...

 

44 minutes ago, cursulak said:

If the company only has 10 courses it requires it's employees to take, then only 10 columns would show to the right of the name. If there is 100, then it would expand to show the 100.

... IMHO, there is a limit to the number of columns (or checkboxes) that can be displayed and still be useful to the human viewer. And I would put that number much closer to 10 than to 100.

[cursulak]

I understand the comment about the viable number of columns, however the client wishes to see a training matrix with all workers and all training taken in a table. 100 is likely not going to be that big, but I do have several clients whose numbers get up into the 40's per worker. 

Thanks for confirming, I didn't think it was possible. 

[comment]

But it is possible (if you set a maximum to the number of columns). It's just not possible in Table view.