Incorrect search results from portal

[fbugeja]

I am a school teacher who has been developing a database for use by staff to record things about students e.g. infringements, merits, etc. In very early versions of this database (called MASTER), I was able to do the following searches:

1. Find a specific student (e.g. Alexandra Wood)

2. Find a specific student on a specified date (e.g. Graham Bell -10/01/05)

3. Find student entries entered today (using //)

4. Find student entries entered today for a specific year group (7-12)

5. Find student entries after a certain date

6. Find student entries after a certain date for a specific year group

7. Find student entries between 2 specified dates

8. Find a specific student between 2 specified dates

9. Find student entries between 2 specified dates for a specified year group 10. Find student entries between 2 specified dates for a specified year & KLA

With further development of the database, especially involving the use of portals linking tables, etc, I find that I can no longer do these searches as I could when I only had one table in the database and there were no portals.

To give an idea of what the problem is:

1. download and open MASTER

[Ender]

A find through a portal finds all PARENT records that have one or match in the portal. The related records (in the portal) in the resulting found set will not change their order. The first related record is still going to be the first related record, even if that was not the row that made the parent record match the find. Also, searching multiple fields in a portal will not produce the AND results you expect.

For a report, you should run your search from a layout based on the Discipline Concerns table. This will show results where each record is one child's specific Discipline Concern. You can then use sub-summary parts to summarize records for each child.

If this not for a report, but for generating a list for users to navigate to, then I'd do it by using global 'search' fields that are part of a second relationship to the Discipline Concerns.

Let us know what your goal is and we can give more details.

[fbugeja]

Thanks for your reply, Ender.

The goal is to show relevant staff (subject co-ordinators, year co-ordinators, principal and vice-principal) the names of students, that student's infringement(s), and the infringement date that fit the search criteria. For example, the Year 9 Co-ordinator may want to know the names of students in Year 9, each Year 9 student's infringement and the date of the infringement between 2 specified dates. ("What infringements and when and by whom have been committed by Year 9 students between <date 1> and <date 2>?") At the moment, whenever a student does something wrong, teachers fill out a report form we use at our school and give it to either a subject co-ordinator or year co-ordinator for further follow-up. I aim to eradicate the volumes of paper this system uses and to allow relevant staff easier access to information that sheets sitting on their desks don't provide!

The database gives correct results if I limit the findings to the name of the student and the student's year group and homeclass; however, I want to display more than this - and this is where I am having trouble. Unfortunately, this is a reflection of my lack of knowledge in this area and how to solve problems. However, the help given to me by members of this website over the last few weeks has been fantastic.

I am still hopeful of achieving what I set out in my previous posting!

Frank

[Ender]

I should have been more clear: Are you trying to find the names for a printed report only, or for changing the found set so users can work with those student records?

[fbugeja]

Student names, year group, homeroom, infringement and infringement date for a printed report only to allow year co-ordinators (and other relevant staff) to follow up these students.

Frank

[fbugeja]

I've added the latest version of the program to get an idea of what I want. Click the Search button on the main screen, select "Incorrect Uniform" from infringements field, and see the report I like generated.

Frank

MASTER.zip

[Ender]

As I said before, for a report of Discipline Concerns (Infringement,) run the find on a layout based on the Infringement table, then use sub-summary parts to group them by Student.

Try searching the forums for sub-summary.

BTW: It seems your duplicate table occurrances have no purpose the way they are related to the original by the same ID field.

[fbugeja]

Thanks Ender - will follow up your suggestion

Frank