I am using a portal to view a list of invoices from the related invoic DB, filtered by the clients name. I placed a summary field outside the portal to show me the Total Ammount of a client.

That works fine.

but as soon as i change the clients name (pull down list) the summary field turns into a blank field. i have to klick into that field to see the new calculated result again.

Is there a way to show the information on the layout without scripting?

thanks Norbert

Summary or an agregate function over a relation???

--sd

Use a calculation with Sum(relationship::field) instead of a summary field.

I tried a few things:

1) summary field in the invoice DB and a lookup in masterdb over a relation

2) calculation field A in the master DB where A=incoice::summaryfield

3) calculation field A in the master DB where A=sum(invoice::invoiceValue)

always the same.

but as soon as i change the clients name (pull down list)...

This sounds fishy. Are the records in Master client records? If so, then changing the name in a pull down menu makes no sense. And if you are relating to the Invoice items by that client name field, then this may account for the problems you are having.

You should have Client records related to Invoice by Client ID, then Invoice related to Invoice Line Items by Invoice#. These IDs should not change. If you want to view a different client, try a find in the Client table.

For a calculation, make sure you check Unstored ("Do not store uncalculated results--recalculate when needed").

thank you all for your support!

The problem occurs only with valuel lists (pulldown menus),when typing the name of the client into a standard field and then leaving the field with a simple tab, the summary field shows the calculation.

It seems as value lists do make this problem

:

Sorry to piggyback on this thread but I am having a somewhat similar problem. The file is attached, if anyone can tell me how to get the field to update automatically I'd appreciate it. I have found that coming out of a drop down list in the portal field does update the Summary field though???

Using a script to

Commit Record []

Refresh Window [ Flush cached join results ]

will make the Total refresh. Though this may not be necessary if you have all the tables combined in one file. In my tests this refresh was automatic when they were in the same file.

I figured out my problem. I didnt have a portal on my layout for the relationship used in the summary field calculation. Added a portal with nothing in it to the layout and now the sum calculation updates correctly.