School Database

[Adam M.]

I've been working with simple databases for a little while. I've done some work with Access. I like Filemaker for it's simplicity and have started using it, however I've run into some problems. I'm in the middle of building a student database for a small private school. I've seen a few things on the forum about using an Enrollment table between Students and Classes, but what I'm hoping to do is have a Class Setup Layout that automatically adds the students to the class once the Grade Level is selected (based on the Grade Level of the student). Is there a way to do this? Thanks for any help.

[Adam M.]

I forgot to mention. I've already got a portal setup on the Class Setup Layout, but I have to add the students manually. If this is the only way to do it, then that's fine. I have a few questions about that too.

[Lee Smith]

have you looked at the Templates that came with your FileMaker Application?

There are some Template Files that seem to be ready to use, might do what you want.

[Adam M.]

Most of the templates don't include anything about classes. There was a Course Tracker File I found on the filemaker website, but it did the same as what I said earlier, you had to add each student manually. You also had to use a popup window.

Edited January 23, 2006 by Guest

[Genx]

... do a relationship between the grade level of the student and the class grade level?...

[Ender]

Greetings,

what I'm hoping to do is have a Class Setup Layout that automatically adds the students to the class once the Grade Level is selected (based on the Grade Level of the student)

Are you asking for a method to assign Students to a random Class in their grade, or is there only one Class per grade? In any case a script could be used to actually do the work of creating a record in the Enrollment table.

One suggestion about grade levels: In my experience, it's better to enter the graduation year, and have the grade level calculated from that, than to try to keep the grade level up-to-date manually. In this case, the Grad Year would be stored in the Student table, and the Enrollment table would store the School Year for that Enrollment. The grade level can then be calculated by the difference, within the Enrollment table.

[Adam M.]

If I calculate the grade level by the graduation year, I'll run into problems with students that have to repeat a grade, won't I? If they repeat a grade, and I want to go back to look at their grades from last year (the year they failed), their grade level will show up differently won't it?

About the classes, there's only one class per grade (small school). It would be convenient if all of the students would show up in each class for that grade automatically after it is created. Is there any way for this to continue to happen after a class has been created? For example, if we have a new student start in the middle of the school year, I would like that student to show up automatically in each class for that grade. I know you could do this using a relationship with the grade level, but will that work with an Enrollment table (a join table between students and classes). Each student will have multiple enrollments in different classes in order to keep track of their scores for each class. Does that make sense?