Noob needs help - variable # recs. per layout?

[skrying]

I'm having trouble creating a layout for what I need to model: each CUSTOMER has any number of ORDER, and each ORDER has any number of ITEM, and each ITEM has any number of CONFIGURATION. Here's a picture if that doesn't make sense:

What I would like is to have a layout that shows the customer name & info (from CUSTOMER), along with any orders they have (from ORDER). Then, for each order, all the items in that order (from ITEM), and for each item, all the configurations it could have (from CONFIGURATION).

I was going to handle this using portals, but I just learned you can't have a portal within a portal (I'm a FileMaker noob).

I don't know of any way to get all of this information into a layout. And I don't know of any other way to model this data. Any suggestions?

[Wim Decorte]

Maybe it doesn't need to be all on one layout. On the customer layout you can show a portal of orders. If they click on an order in the portal you can have a script take them to the order layout and show a portal of items. Same for showing configurations.

Or if you need to have it on one layout, you can show portals next to each other.

[LaRetta]

Variable number of records spells 'report' to me. Could you go that route in this case? It can be generated from the Configuration file and you can even have page breaks between Customer or Order. You can include many more fields and sub-total to your heart's content.

Something like this, I should think (attached). I don't have time to 'pretty' it up (I'm heading for bed) and it lacks data & fields so looks pretty weak but it gets the concept across I think.

LaRetta

Config.zip