HELP: Tracking Press Releases sent to Reporters

[Christine Lee]

I am developing a database for media contacts in my office. Right now I have two relational databases -- one for the reporters and another for where they work. I have made a third relational database called Activity History -- through this database, I would like each reporter to have a running history of the press releases, "the activity," we send out to them. Right now I have a portal set up from the contacts database into the activity history database and when they click on "New Activity" -- it takes them to a new record in that database to enter in the press release information and then the script copies the Activity ID and pastes into the Activity ID field in the first record of the found set in the Contacts Database and then replaces all records in the found set (since many reporters get the same press release) with the same Activity ID so that all the reporters who get that press release now have a record of this.

My problem is that right now I have in the script "Go to Portal Row (Select, Last)" but despite this, whenever the "New Activity" script is run it overwrites the first one in the list; so I can never get past one record in the "Activity History".

Any ideas? If there is a better way to track this kind of information, I am open to that too. My thought was that this would be a many (reporters) to one (one press release) relationship between the Reporters database and the Activity History database.

Thanks,

Christine

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Well,

As for a start, why not have a portal set with allow creation of related records from the 'Activity 'File to the 'Activity History' File (which I assumed was a Join File).

In that portal, set the contact_id field to be formatted as value list (using values from file 'Reporters'). You'd pick the selected contact_ids (sorted by reporter name would be easier), and it would be auto-filled with the Activity_Id in the Activity History File.

As your Join File would have a new record with an Activity_Id and a Reporter_Id, another portal in the 'Reporter' File could then show every related Activity for each reporter.

[Christine Lee]

Thank you for your help but I could use a little clarification.

I understand to set the portal to allow creation of related records, but right now I have only one file right that is called Activity that has Activity IDs and I have a portal set up in the Reporter File into the Activity file. It sounds like I may need two files here -- one that records the actual "Activity" via an Activity_ID and one that records the "Activity History" that is Contact_ID with Activty_ID. And then I would want a portal via Contact ID to the "Activity History" file to show all activities under that Contact ID. Is that right?

Is there a way to hae this setup and also allow me to add an Activity ID to multiple reporter records at once? I would like to try to keep this as one button click -- that is find a set of reporters based on given search criteria and click a button to add a new activity (the same activity) to all the reporters in the found set. Do you think I need a loop script here?

[Jim McKee]

Hi Christine ...

Attached is a demo of what I think you are trying to accomplish.

My system doesn't loop through portals. Once you assemble the found set of recipients for your Release, you simply click a button on the Release record, and the Release is assigned to those recipients AND to their related organisations.

It also contains a facility to "Undo" an assignment procedure, and allows you to Add additional recipients to the assignment at any time.

Basically, recipient IDs (and their related Organisation IDs) get stored with the Release record. And, Release IDs get stored with recipients (and their related Organisations). So there are two-way relationships that enable you to reference recipients and organisations from Releases, and Releases from recipients and their related Organisations.

If you have any questions about the demo, email me (addy is in my profile) or post here.

Good luck!

News_Releases_5.zip