Desperately some help here please

[theyetti]

Hiya, I haven't seriouly used FileMaker since high school (long time ago) and I desperately need some help and advice. I'm trying to develop a database (DB) to help with obtaining price and availability. This process involves using a web site to establish what companies are holding stocks of products I require. I search for a given part # and use the DB to record companies that have that part at the time. As I work through the list a company may have more than one part I require so upon completion I need the DB to produce a document that I can fax to the company with all the parts they could possibly supply. My example works but I'm having trouble with repeating fields and need to find another way to do the same job with out using them.

Any help given would be greatly appreciated as at the moment I'm completely snowed under and just can't get my head around the problem. Another perspective is needed.

Thanks Heaps Peter :-)

1104991948-Pricing_AvailabiltyCopy.zip

[CobaltSky]

Hello Peter,

Repeating fields were sometimes used in FileMaker's early days to store multiple elements of associated information against a given record.

However with the release of FileMaker 3, this approach became redundant, because a much more flexible and efficient option was made available in the form of relational capabilities and portals. Ever since then repeating fields have represented one of the least useful ways to handle data associations.

I would suggest that you replace all your repeating fields with a related table and a portal. Depending on your data structure, you may require several related tables and several portals to get the job done. Howsoever that may be, each row of the portal will display the fields from one related record. So for instance, you will be able to create a record on a given company, then fill a portal with lines that relate to a range of products or items.

With such an arrangement, if you delete an item (ie a row of the portal, all the others will move up to fill the gap, and you can have an unlimited number of related items and set the portal up with a scroll bar so that you can review them all. Each time you enter data into a new row, a new related record will be created to store the details.

Give it a try and I'm sure you won't look back.

[theyetti]

Thanks for the information, it's greatly appreciated :-)

Unlike an inventory or invoice situation I need to relate many companies to one product then produce a various products per company report of sorts. Then when I get suitable information back for a product exclude that product from my report but keep the information proccured. ie. once a price has been obtained for a item from a company I don't need to send a request out again.

Is there a chance you could look at my sample file?

Thanks and Regards

Peter :-)