Frustrated Funny Fellow Feeling Flabbergasted

[HealthaQuote]

Frustrated Funny Fellow Feeling Flabbergasted - say that Five times Fast...

I really felt like using another word that starts with "F," but instead I used all of the other ones that came to mind.

To those out there who know what they are doing and have a few extra minutes to lend a guiding hand to someone in desperate need, I would appreciate it, big time.

This is such an easy problem to solve and, for that very reason, is why I am driving myself CRAZY. I just can't see the solution. I don't know file maker pro, but I have figured out a lot in spite of this problem.

My boss fired the only person who knew how to run our File Maker Pro 4.0v1 and appointed me to be the one to "figure it out." I have had some great success up to this point in time, but I am stuck and could really use some help. I know that I am so close to figuring my way out of this corner that I cannot see what is right in front of me.

To make this short, we enter client information (their address most importantly) and print letters to send to them. I have a field named "Mailing Area" that tells us which letterhead to use for their particular location.

We enter cities into a separate area database that defines a "city" to a particular "area". "Denver" is "Metro", "Colorado Springs" is "CS", etc. One of the main purposes of the "Mailing Area" field is to tell us which letterhead to put in the printer, among other things.

We just got two new letterheads (one for Summit County, Vail (SCVL), & Leadville and one for Glenwood Springs & Aspen (GSA)) that do not have scripts for them.

I have four scripts for each area (as in Denver, Denver FLs, Denver Dental, 30 Day Follow Up Letters Denver) and many mailing areas (such as 800, CS, not to mention the two new ones). They all are based around finding the different mailing areas (so I can put that particular letterhead into the printer and print all of the letters for that particular mailing area), but I have yet to find where to tell the script to look for the mailing areas. The script definitions look like the following:

For "Denver"

Perform Find[Restore]

Pause/Resume Script[]

Paste Current Date[select, "Date Sent"]

Replace[No dialog,"Date Sent","Current contents"]

Go to Layout["Quote Letter"]

Print[No dialog]

Go to Layout["Layout #1"]

For "Denver Fls"

Perform Find[Restore]

Pause/Resume Script[]

Paste Current Date[select, "Date FLs Sent"]

Replace[No dialog,"Date FLs Sent","Current contents"]

Go to Layout["Follow Up Letter"]

Print[]

Go to Layout["Layout #1"]

For "Denver Dental"

Perform Find[Restore]

Pause/Resume Script[]

Paste Current Date[select, "Date Sent"]

Replace[No dialog,"Date Sent","Current contents"]

Go to Layout["Dental Letter"]

Print[]

Go to Layout["original layout"]

For "30 Day Follow Up Letter Denver"

Perform Find[Restore]

Pause/Resume Script[]

Go to Layout["30 Follow Up Letter"]

Paste Current Date[select, "Date 30 FL Sent"]

Replace[No dialog,"Date 30 FL Sent","Current contents"]

Print[]

Go to Layout["original layout"]

Every area (Denver, CS, 800, GSA, SCVL, etc.) has each of these four scripts. I have created identical scripts for the two new areas (GSA & SCVL), but they do not work. I tried duplicating one of the scripts and renaming it to the new areas but it searches for the one it was copied from.

I know that I am really close to getting it right. I know that all I have to do is to tell the four scripts for GSA to search the "mailing area" field for all of the GSAs,

BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT

I tried going into mode under find and selecting GSA in the mailing field and then creating a new GSA script, but it didn't work.

Please help me, please.

I am going crazy (Flipping out) because I know how easy this should be.

Frustrated Funny Fellow Feeling Flabbergasted - say that Five times Fast...

Feel Free to email me,

[email protected]

[email protected]

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

Sounds like you were on the right track. The Perform Find [Restore] is the step that is actually doing the find. But the find was done manually, and the script just repeats that specific find. To see the actual find requests, print the scripts from ScriptMaker.

So, you could do your find manually, then go right to ScriptMaker and copy one of the other scripts. Be sure to change the rest of the script to fit your needs. If you click OK to exit out of the script definition, it will ask you to either keep or replace the find requests. Select replace. It will replace this old find request with the manual one you just did.

Hope this helps a little. If you need more help, let us know.

Ken

[Lee Smith]

Hi Matt,

While I was composing my answer, Kenneth submitted his response.

He and I are zeroing in on similar things, but I thought I would send this along in hopes that it will help.

It may help you to comment on each step in order to keep it streight in you mind. For instence,

Your script as posted

For "Denver"

Perform Find[Restore]

Pause/Resume Script[]

Paste Current Date[select, "Date Sent"]

Replace[No dialog,"Date Sent","Current contents"]

Go to Layout["Quote Letter"]

Print[No dialog]

Go to Layout["Layout #1"]

See comments.

Script Name "Denver"

Go to Layout (Layout 1) (Note 1*)

Perform Find (Restore) (Comment on what this find is doing)

New Record Request

Loop

Set Field [Date Sent, Status(CurrentDate)} (Note 2**)

New Record Request, Next exit after Last

End Loop

Go To Layout "Quote Letter"}

Print (No dialog)

* Is this the layout where the field is that the Find is based on?

** Set Field is better than a paste and doesn't require Date Sent Field to be on your field)

(Note 3* Replace[No dialog,"Date Sent","Current contents"] I took this out because, something doesn't sound right here, what are you trying to accomplish?)

Lee

[HealthaQuote]

Thanks for the posts Ken and Lee!

They really helped me out. I entered the new find requests manually and then went to scriptmaker and replaced the old find requests.

IT WORKED!!!

Only time will tell whether or not the manual finds are looking for everything they should be, but it works none the less.

I do have one more question about find requests regarding the current (today's) date.

Two of my scirpts need to find today's date in a particular field. When I was doing the find manually, I used a command, which strikes the control key and the dash/underscore key (directly right of the zero key and above the p key), to place today's date in the field I needed to search for today's date.

I am wondering if this is going to work, or if it will only search for TODAY'S date, being 8/8/2003, the date that control dash/underscore put into the field.

Again, just wanted to say thanks for your time. Your two cents has helped immensely.

Thanks again,

Matt

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

Sorry I almost missed this post.

Wow. I had to look up that command, I didn't know there were so many keyboard commands. It's like a whole other language.

Anyways, it looks like that enters the CURRENT date. So if you script that find, it will always find for the date you did the manual find. There are a couple of ways to do a "current date" find. The one I like has these parts of the scipt:

Set Error Capture [On]

Enter Find Mode

Set Field [DateField, "//"] - this finds for the current date

-other find stuff-

Perform Find

Something like that