Trying to create ticket bookings database for theatre - need help!

[Neil Martin Productions]

Hi, This is my first posting and hope that you guys can help me. My knowledge of FM is reasonable but not at a professional level - I think!

I am building a database to take bookings for a theatre that I am involved with(London's famous 'Magic Circle'). The database will store information about the various magic shows and register customers bookings.

I envisage so far using three databases. One to store information about the shows (title, curtain up, show finish, artistes, ticket prices, etc); one database to store information about the bookers or customers (can also hold credit card/payment details); the other database will show the seating plan of the theatre (only 162 seats).

I need to be able to relate the customers to the seats (some will book just a few seats, others many) and in turn I need to relate the theatre seats to a specific show.

Once a seat is booked it cannot be available for sale to someone else and this needs to be shown. In the 'shows' database, each show will be a different record so that I can accept bookings for a number of different events at the same time (IE monday evening show, tuesday daytime, saturday evening, etc). Once a show has finished I can delete the show's record but the customer database will still hold all the details of the audience(customers)in case they books for a different show in the future.

My problem is creating the relationship/link for the three databases. How do I create a relationship between each of the 162 seats and potential customers and then link all the seats in the theatre to a specific show??

Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can email me privately at [email protected] if it is too lengthy or complicated to post in the forum.

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Neil Martin

Managing Director

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Neil Martin Productions Ltd

Premier Corporate Entertainment

PO Box 981, Wallington, Surrey, SM6 8JU

www.nmp.co.uk

[email protected]

(T) 020 8669 3128

[Kurt Knippel]

quote:

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Originally posted by Neil Martin Productions:

Hi, This is my first posting and hope that you guys can help me. My knowledge of FM is reasonable but not at a professional level - I think!

I am building a database to take bookings for a theatre that I am involved with(London's famous 'Magic Circle'). The database will store information about the various magic shows and register customers bookings.

I envisage so far using three databases. One to store information about the shows (title, curtain up, show finish, artistes, ticket prices, etc); one database to store information about the bookers or customers (can also hold credit card/payment details); the other database will show the seating plan of the theatre (only 162 seats).

I need to be able to relate the customers to the seats (some will book just a few seats, others many) and in turn I need to relate the theatre seats to a specific show.

Once a seat is booked it cannot be available for sale to someone else and this needs to be shown. In the 'shows' database, each show will be a different record so that I can accept bookings for a number of different events at the same time (IE monday evening show, tuesday daytime, saturday evening, etc). Once a show has finished I can delete the show's record but the customer database will still hold all the details of the audience(customers)in case they books for a different show in the future.

My problem is creating the relationship/link for the three databases. How do I create a relationship between each of the 162 seats and potential customers and then link all the seats in the theatre to a specific show??

Any help would be greatly appreciated

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First, get a book on relational database design, then read it. Next start to map out your databases. Go through the normalization process.

You need lots more than 3 files. I would guess 6-9 files, but without the ER Diagrams and normalization process I could not be more specific.

Please do NOT simply do some quick-and-dirty solution, "because they do not need/want anything complex" or "because they cannot afford much". This does both you, your customer and the Filemaker community a disservice.

You might also want to consider hiring a professional to build the solution as a sub-contractor to complete some or all of this solution for you.

As an answer to your particular question: You will need a "join" file to go betwen your customer and seats file, and really your shows files needs to be involved as well.

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Kurt Knippel

Senior Filemaker Developer

http://www.database-resources.com

mailto:[email protected]

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