Okay, so recently I was handed a copy of FileMaker pro at work and received absolutely no training (they assume because I'm a young CIS intern I should know it all.) Anyhow, I was assigned to create a database for one of the after school programs to help keep track of the students enrolled in the program, their home numbers, emergency numbers, teacher, grade, and the activities they enrolled in. Well, I created a day field for each of the three days that the program runs (Tues, wed, Thurs.) Each activity has a maximum number of students that can be enrolled, for example the karate class has maximum of 20 students allowed and the arts class has a maximum of 10 allowed etc. How do I go about limiting the number of students in each activity without having to keep checking and counting...in other words how can I have filemaker prevent me from going over the maximum?

Field named "maxkids" is global and numeric, set to the max number of students.

Field nameed "studentno" is numeric. In the options 'auto enter' as a serial number starting at 1. In the 'validation' set to validate by calculation. Specify the calculation as "studentno< maxkids+1". You can check the box for "Display custome message if validation fails" and enter a message of "class is full"

Its not the most eligant method, nor the most versitle with regard to dropping students etc., but its fast and gives you someplace to start with a new program.