Multiple Portals on a layout

[tDot]

I want to create a layout which has 4 portals beside each other, representing 4 tables (Clients, Departments, Initiatives, and Projects). I want these portals to be relational, ie. if I select a client from the first portal, the department portal shows only those departments associated with that client. Selecting a department shows only that department's initiatives, and so on.

As far as I can tell, I need to use global fields like "Selected Client", "Selected Department", etc.

3 Questions:

(a) Where to define these fields? All of them in the clients table? Or should each be defined in its own table? ie. Selected Department defined in the department table? Does it matter?

(: In order to make the Departments portal work, do I need to create a new relationship (2nd instance of Departments) where the relationship is to "Selected Client" as opposed to using the existing relationship by Client?

© How do I script it to set the "Selected Client" by clicking on the client name in the client portal?

Any help will be greatly appreciated

FileMaker Version: 7

Platform: Windows XP

[Ocean West]

here is a sample table I couldn't finnish it as i had to leave but I started it

FileMaker Version: Dev 7

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

sample.fp7.zip

[tDot]

Ocean West said:

here is a sample table I couldn't finnish it as i had to leave but I started it

WOW. Thanks for the time you invested in this! Because of my original questions, I'm not sure exactly how your example is supposed to work...can you give me a high-level description of what still needs to be done?

[OfficeMoMo]

Sample creation was carried out, although he may not be able to understand well, since English is weak.

Please download and check a sample.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/office/momo/upfiles/ABCD.ZIP

A script button is set as each field in a portal of the upper stage.

The lower stage is set to data input.

Since there is little sample data, it is inputted, and it asks you for a check of operation.

Does it become helpful?

[retlas]

Thank you for your efforts with the multiple portal sample file. I am having trouble getting my head around what supposed to be going on but am sure these are concepts I need to understand. Would you be willing to give a little instruction on the files construction with a focus on the multiple criteria relationships?

FileMaker Version: Dev 6

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[DrRoebuck]

I've attached a file with a very basic setup that might work for you. Feel free to shoot me any questions.

FileMaker Version: 7

Platform: Windows XP

clients.zip

[cellmaker]

Stephen -

Interesting example. I'm doing something similar to this, on the global "select" level. However, in general I'm a little confused by what your intention is given the relationships diagram.

On the one hand, from the ERD, it appears that you have a strict top-down hierarchy: A client has a department, a department has initiatives, and initiatives have projects.

However, if these were strict one-to-many relationships, you wouldn't need to repeat keys. You could just "reach through" all of the relationships to get to the info you need. (Yes?)

However, since you are repeating keys, this suggest something different:

Clients can have the same departments.

Departments can have the same initiatives

Initiatives can have the same projects.

In this case, wouldn't you want to have separate tables for Clients (with only client info), Departments (ditto), Initiatives (ditto) and Projects (ditto), and then use join tables? Otherwise you're repeating info over and over within these different tables, no?

Maybe I'm just overcomplicating this or you are simply leaving out the base information, contained in tables not explicit to the graph.

Thoughts?

[H.P.]

Check out this example. It is from a member in this board. I extended it a bit by adding different filters. Click on the dealer to filter it by specific dealer.

M2M.zip

[zincb]

Attached is one approach at a solution. It uses four layouts and four globals, so it does not actually meet your exact requirements, but does the job. It assumes that one Client may have multiple Departments, each Department may have multiple Initiatives, and each Initiative may have multiple Projects. Thank you for a very intriguing problem -- it should be part of any FM7 training class!

M2M2M2M.zip