Trouble making linked data work

[geefour]

Hi,

I have to add a proforma page onto our existing database. It needs to link from our contact layout, to this new page.

The tricky bit is the data. I want it to fill in certain parts of the form from the data on the contacts page, and to leave certain parts empty. Users should then be able to fill in the remaining data, print and then save it.

I'm just not getting anywhere with having the proforma page pick up the data, allow the new data to be added and then saved all at once, its so far been either one or the other.

It will be a one to many relationship, with each contact potentially having multiple proformas, so putting this in a seperate table would be ideal.

Can anyone suggest the best way to approach this? I've tried and failed so far to give it this probably simple functionality.

[Sanjai]

In the table for proformas, keep a foreign key <>. You have one to many relationships with table contacts based on this contactID field.

In the new layout using proforma table, you can keep the fields based on the relationship between two tables on the layout and do not allow them to enter data in these fields. Once the user enters the contactID or select the contactID from the valuelist for a record in proforma, the calculation fields would automatically start showing the data from contacts table.

[geefour]

Many thanks for that, what would really make it would be if i could set the contact_id in the proforma page. As the contact page it will be opened from has this information is there a way to get this field auto entered, and thus fill in the other information without the user having to do anything?

[Sanjai]

The user would have to select that he is entering the proforma for which contact. So either he will have to select the contactID from a pop-up list. You can create a value list based on the values in the field ContactID in your contacts table. Once the user selects the value for contactID in the proforma layout, automatically the related fields from contacts would be shown.

You should not make it auto entered unless you are tracking the signup information and you know that if a particular user has signed up then he would always enter proforma for a particular contact.