Tracking Time / Multiple Users

[Patron Saint of Chimichangas]

Filemaker newbie here, transitioning from MS Access. Please forgive any stupid questions or faux pas.

I am building a database to track every aspect of a design project. I have five tables working together:

- customer info

- project specs

- billing info (estimates & actuals for all aspects of projects)

- shipping info/tracking

- project history/notes

What I'm trying to do now, in simplest terms, is create a way for designers to open the project, click a "Start" button that will begin tracking their time, then click a "Stop" button. I want that billable time to be stored in the billing info table.

I've got a good idea how to go about all that. What I don't know is how I can allow two designers to be working on the same project at the same time (or overlapping times) and have the time for both users tracked and stored.

I hope that's somewhat clear. If anyone can help, I'd be grateful! Thanks.

[David Kachel]

Filemaker newbie here, transitioning from MS Access. Please forgive any stupid questions or faux pas.

I am building a database to track every aspect of a design project. I have five tables working together:

- customer info

- project specs

- billing info (estimates & actuals for all aspects of projects)

- shipping info/tracking

- project history/notes

What I'm trying to do now, in simplest terms, is create a way for designers to open the project, click a "Start" button that will begin tracking their time, then click a "Stop" button. I want that billable time to be stored in the billing info table.

I've got a good idea how to go about all that. What I don't know is how I can allow two designers to be working on the same project at the same time (or overlapping times) and have the time for both users tracked and stored.

I hope that's somewhat clear. If anyone can help, I'd be grateful! Thanks.

Chimi,

You really don't need a "running clock" all the while people are working.

Just have start and stop time fields and a calc field that "does the math" to show you the elapsed time between the two entries.

[Ender]

What I don't know is how I can allow two designers to be working on the same project at the same time (or overlapping times) and have the time for both users tracked and stored.

I think you'll need another table, where each record is one designer's work session (call this table Project Hours), with a Start Time, End Time, and the difference: a Time Worked field (if designers sometimes work late into the wee hours of the night, use timestamp fields instead.) Then have your billing table pull those project hours together by summing the related Time Worked fields:

Total Project Time (calculation, number result) = Sum ( Project Hours::Time Worked )

Or, if the hours must be subtotalled separately for each designer, you may need additional tables to segment the data by designer. Or a sub-summary report could be used if the sub totals are only needed on the printout.

[Patron Saint of Chimichangas]

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I will try both tonight and let you know how it goes. Now I'm having another weird issue, but I think it belongs in a different forum, so I'm off to find the right one. Thanks again!