Stumped with a simple problem... Help please???

[eyeballs]

Thanks for helping out! First post, so here goes...

Using a list of contacts with a unique identifier, I also have other databases that have some of the contacts present in them, having the same unique identifier. The relationships are set through the serial number (unique Identifier). From the contact database, which has all the contacts, when I ask filemaker to grab and display some information from the other database, it works fine, but only when the other database has a contact with the unique identifier. If there is no contact with the unique identifier from the first database, filemaker displays the last record that I was viewing. So when there is a record with the same identifier in the second databse, no problem, but when there isn't, it displays the info from the last record that I was looking at. Is there a way I can have filemaker show me a window like "no record found", or a way to have filemaker fill in all the gaps in the serial numbers of the second database with black fields, or "no contact found" showing in a field.

Thanks. I;ve been pulling my hair out for a few days over this. I'm an amateur, and this has me stumped.

Thanks

-Steve

[ESpringer]

I'm not sure what you mean by "ask FileMaker to grab and display some information...". You could be talking about an auto-enter field, a calc or a portal (apparently none of these three, since these would show immediately whether there's a related record already), or about a script. I assumi it's a script, but it's not clear what script steps you have... you could certainly have any script see whether there *are* any related records (by checking whether a count of them totals more than 0), and to go to the related records if there are any, and to present a "no related records found" message if not...

It sounds from the end of your message as though you're not using portals, and might benefit from including portals to your other databases on this main contacts layout... Or perhaps I don't understand what you're driving at?

[eyeballs]

Sorry for my poor explanation of what is happening. I am using scripts, and was not aware of a way to check to see if there are any related records in another dattabase. If I can do that, that would solve my problem. After I read your response, I am exploring the use of portals, which may solve my problem entirely. Thanks So much!!