Help with related files/value lists

[Peter H]

Hi All

I'm not at all sure I am going to be able to explain what I want to do in writing but I will try so please bear with me.

I work in a museum and I have 2 databases to deal with cataloguing our entomology collection. One is the specimen database where information about each pinned specimen is entered and the other contains information on all the names of species found in Britain for many families of insects. In both files the name of the insect is made up of 2 fields 'genus' and 'species'.

Is is possible to set the databases up so that when a name is entered in 'genus' in the specimen database the 'species' field only shows the species names linked to that genus name from the species database in a popup menu rather than all the species names in the database (24,000).

Hope that is understandable, any help will be gratefully received.

Peter

[CobaltSky]

Yes that is very possible. What you need is a conditional value list.

First, if you don't already have one, you'll require a relationship from your specimen database to your species database which matches the genus fields in the two files.

Then, you should define your value list to use values from a field. However in the dialog for this option, select the option second from the top for 'Only related values', and choose the relationship beteen the genus fields to base ot on. Then select the species field from the box at the lower left and click OK to exit the settings dialog.

Once this is in place, your value list will display only those species which correspond to the genus selected for the current record.

[Peter H]

Excellent, thanks very much Ray.