I just started to use Filemaker 7 coming from access, and directly ran into the problem of not being able to dreate a new record in a portal. The helpfunction says just to type the information in the last line of the portal, but typing is not accepted in the next empty space. choosing "new record" just creates a new record in the main database... I've spent hours looking through the program and this forum, but to no avail yet....please help me to be a good convert!

make sure the check box in your relationship is checded to allow creation of new records in this table via this relationship.

Anthony

I would like to know whether it is possible to restrict users from creating new line items in a portal once the parent-child record has previously been created.

Eg. In a Purchase Requesition (PR) application, once a user has created a PR record, with a parent record and 3 child records in the portal. Even though access privilege of CREATE has been granted to the user to these parent and child tables, but after the PR record has been created, the user can not subsequently accesses the record to create new line item in the portal.

Use 2 layouts: one for creating/editing, one for viewing. Once the creation process has completed, set a flag (or a Completion Date field.) Use this in your navigation scripts to decide which layout to go to.