Dialog Pop Up on specified date & time.

[Snowdog]

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I can't find this anywhere.

I'd like to be able to enter a date & time into two fields (probably dd-mm-yyyy & hh-mm or some such) & have FM open up a dialog at the specified date & time.

It doesn't have to say anything specific, only to draw my attention to a particular contact, so that I can find that contact, check the contact report & carry out any action I've noted.

Can anyone help with this?

[BrentHedden]

Welcome to the forum!

Filemaker won't do this natively, but there is a nifty plugin made by a company named Troi Automatisering that'll fit the bill. It's called Activator, check out this website - http://www.troi.com/software/activatorplugin.html for details. Basically, it runs a script at a specified time. You could set up a new script to do whatever you desire.

There are other plugins that will do function as well, but are much more expensive that the one Troi offers.

[Snowdog]

Cheers for the link. I'll investigate (but I'm pretty sure my ming-mong level FM7 skills will preclude me from getting involved in any hard core scripting at this stage!)

I find it quite odd that such an obvious function is not native to FM.

If you're keeping an up to date client database, with contact reports, it seems obvious to me that you might want reminding when you've promised to call one of your many contacts back in a few days.

Ah well. I'm obviously missing something.

Is there any other way to get FM to remind you of something at a specified time in the future? Sending an e-mail or something?

[Ender]

I find it quite odd that such an obvious function is not native to FM.

If you're keeping an up to date client database, with contact reports, it seems obvious to me that you might want reminding when you've promised to call one of your many contacts back in a few days.

I don't need this feature at all.

Is there any other way to get FM to remind you of something at a specified time in the future? Sending an e-mail or something?

Isn't that what Brent was talking about?

If this is a networked solution, you could use a dedicated machine to run in an endless loop, checking if there are any reminders to send out.

[JamesBand]

Cheers for the link. I'll investigate (but I'm pretty sure my ming-mong level FM7 skills will preclude me from getting involved in any hard core scripting at this stage!)

I find it quite odd that such an obvious function is not native to FM.

If you're keeping an up to date client database, with contact reports, it seems obvious to me that you might want reminding when you've promised to call one of your many contacts back in a few days.

Ah well. I'm obviously missing something.

Is there any other way to get FM to remind you of something at a specified time in the future? Sending an e-mail or something?

If you don't want to script the feature, you can simply create a layout in list mode (or view as form w/ a portal) with all your TO-DOs and sort ascending by date.

JamesBand

[David McQueen]

I find it quite odd that such an obvious function is not native to FM.

What you are looking for is an alarms function. These operate in the background at the OS level and will do an interrupt of the program when triggered.

FileMaker does not act at that level.

Your best option is the Activator plug in from Troi or similar. They are not that hard to use. Basically all plug ins work the same way...Bombard a field with commands and then something happens.

HTH

Dave McQueen