OK...newbie here... I have been using FileMaker for sometime, but have never used a portal. Besides the bad instructions on the filemaker help menu.. can someone please explain the benefits or purpose of a portal. I think it will help in my app. I am trying to create a schedule of tasks for various days of the week. I need a popup menu which will list the next three weeks worth of dates and also need a list view which will actually create the schedule...along with summary fileds for each date...

A portal is an object that displays data from related records, and also can be used to add, edit, or delete related records. If you don't know what a related record is, then you won't be able to make any sense of portals. Also you will be missing out on a fundamental aspect of database design (relationships).

A list of dates/schedule could be a good candidate for a portal.