repeating lookups to seperate files

[BankyToo]

Hello,

I am familiar and a bit savvy with excel and SPSS but this is my first time making a database.

I am creating a DB with repeated measures. For example, we have a 10 question (q1, q2

[Steve T.]

Hi, Jon! Welcome to the forums and the world of databases. Now, admittedly, I am more of a web-person than straight-up FileMaker, but I'm just wondering if have to keep the separate db's, anyway. What I mean is, rather than using lookups to get the data into your new db, what if you just export the questions from each of the weekly db's and import them into your new db, you can have a master set and just stop dealing with the others.

Again, this is not my forte and relationships still make me squint sometimes, but IMHO a centralized db with different layouts will serve you better in the long run.

--ST

[BankyToo]

I did think about that and it may be the answer.

The downside is that we will be peeking at the data with a stats program as it is being entered in FM.

So I would have to "import/replace old data with new" when we would want to take another peek.

The biggest advantage to entering the data in seperate files is that there will only be 1 occurance for each person, rather than making sure that the same visit it not being entered more than one time.

So I like the lookups becuase i can "relook" when I need to but I am not sure it is worth it.

thanks for the thoughts, opinions, and experience.

jon

[Steve T.]

Hmm... in that case, can you use portals instead of lookups? You could have a portal that shows the Q's in each of the db's instead of looking them up. That way, you don't have to define fields/lookups... whatever Q's are in each of the db's is what shows up in the portal as each Q is entered... automatically. Again, I'm not too good at relationships, but portals would allow you to see all the Q's in a db without worrying about how many there are or if you have fields enough to hold them.

Maybe?

--ST

[BankyToo]

Steve,

Thanks for the thoughts and input.

The problem with the portals is that it does not show up as a variable when the stats program queries FM.

Right now the previous suggestion (import all data into one file) is looking like the way to go.

I am thinking about creating the label names in another program and importing them, then defining the fields in FM.

thanks again

jon