I have a project database that has 4 employees per project. Each employee's contact information is stored in the employee database. This is a simplification but let's say that the employee name is the match feild and there is an email address. In the project database, I have a related email field from the employee database for each of the four employees. (the employee database has just the employees name and email) This works great but now I want to complicate it. Is there a way for me to assign a employee type to each of the 4 employees in each project that will transfer to the employee database AND (here's the kicker) have it fill in automatically?

For Instance:

Project 1 has

Abe the Manager

Bob the Asst. Manager

Carl the Supervisor

Dan the Underling

Employee 1 will always be the manager, Employee 2 will always be the asst. manager, etc...

This would work if I just had the users enter the data into a related field...but knowing that employee 1 will always be the manager can I automate this?

Hi,

Not sure I perfectly understood your request, but there are 4 main ways to fill a related file using records from a Parent file.

1. A lookup

2. A related text/num/date/other field

3. A related calculation

4. A calculation based on the relationship.

But in this case, you could create a calculation for your category field in the Main, and use it as a related calculation.

This calc could be as easy as :

a num field (that would be filled with 1,2,3 or 4

the category calc = Choose(num field, "", "Manager", "Ass.Manager", "Supervisor", "Other")

1. A lookup

2. A related text/num/date/other field

3. A related calculation

4. A calculation based on the relationship.

And

5. A calculation based on the (complex) key.

key = UID & " "& Uname & " "& gender & "<lots a spaces here> " & a lot of data

in related

UID = WordsMiddle(key;1;1)

Uname = WordsMiddle(key;1;2)

gender = WordsMiddle(key;1;3)

a lot of data= Middle(key;41,99000)

Since FileMaker evaluates only the first 40 or so characters of a key, you could use this technique to transfer the whole record from Database A to Database B.

I need it sometimes when I need calculated, indexed fields in the related file.