can i do this?

[chaplainmoreno]

Hi!

I'm a Navy Chaplain, and am looking for a FM solution. I teach in a school, and want to put student's info, class information (including lesson plans, powerpoint files) in a database accessible to up to 7 or 8 individuals on a network (probably not all at the same time...) the network is WindowsNT. I need the individuals to be able to input information as well...

Also, I would *love* to be able to create a calendar (either in FM or in another calendar program, outlook? which can talk to FM...where I can list a class period on a certain date on this calendar, click on a class hyperlink, and open FM to allow me to access the following on a screen: class roster, class instructor, lesson plan, etc.

Question 1: Is this doable with the help of a consultant? If so, how much moola might it run..(guesses are fine with me at this point)

Question 2: Is this doable by a person with some rudimentary knowledge of FM (roughly comparable to a trained monkey...) such as myself? Not a computer programmer type, but have made some *very* basic FM databases...

thanks in advance,

Mike

FileMaker Version: 7

[DrRoebuck]

Hi Mike.

The setup of the initial part of your database sounds pretty basic and shouldn't be too difficult. Even the networking aspect is easy.

The calendar part, however, is far more advanced. You might want to take a look around for a pre-made calendar solution. Otherwise, you'll probably want to hire a consultant such as myself (though there are plenty of us running around).

Also, if you're running WindowsNT, you will not be able to use FileMaker 7.

[Fenton]

I agree that your basic setup should not be too difficult. You will need to understand about how FileMaker 7 can reference those documents via either insertion or calculation. The rest is pretty much just understanding relational structure. If you remember any of your "Set Theory" from school, you'll see that FileMaker relations are pretty much the same.

Any simple relational examples you can find will show you how to set it up. Are there any in the FileMaker examples files? They really should release a free "school classes and attendance" solution, like they did the "Business Tracker" one; which is very good, but not what you want. You'll have to look in the Tables section to see whether example files are relational or not; can't just tell by the files anymore.

The calendar is something you definitely do not want to build yourself. It is considerable easier to make anything happen with a calendar in 7, due to the ability to "pass a parameter" when calling a script. But the date calculations and layout are intermediate to advanced, tedious in any case.

I've built my own calendar (took a while :-). It's not updated (simplified) for 7 yet, but there are free and inexpensive ones, perhaps the best being:

http://www.clevelandconsulting.com/cp-app/ste_cat/CCCalendar