Just when I thought I had a handle on it, I realize I am more confused. I have the following tables:

People

Contracts

Job Info

Employee Type

Employee Subtype

1 person can have many contracts and job information (as contracts or job info change, it will become history).

Relationship is

People.emp_pk to job.emp_fk

Job.jb_pk to EmpType.jb_fk

EmpType.emt_type_pk to EmpSubType.ems_type_fk

I am setting up a layout for data entry that has people info, then job info (ie hire date, position title) Part of the job info is the Employee Type (ie Faculty, Staff or Student). So I have a drop down/value list for that.

The Employee Type filters down even further into Faculty- Tenured track or Faculty- Dept Chair, Staff- temporary, Staff- permanent). When I try to enter in data, it creates new records in the Employee type table, which I don’t want or it won’t only pull up the related subtypes.

Any help will be greatly appreciated- as at this point I am banging my head against the keyboard

:bang:

Edited April 25, 200619 yr by Guest

Sounds like your field called Employee Type that you're entering data into is from the table Employee Type, not People (as it should be).

I guess I am confused about relationships or related tables and lookups. It almost seems redundant that I have build a relationship between two tables and then make a value list so users can pick from drop down menu. Your advice/guidance will really help me get through these rough learning patches. Thanks in advance

Can you post your example? I'm sure someone on the Forums will be glad to take a look at it and see what's going on.

I have posted a zip copy with fake data in there. On the People layout, on the job tab, I have asked questions re: the employee type and subtype. It seems redundant that I have related tables and also need value lists, so maybe I am completely not misinformed about life with Filemaker. I repeat- Any assistance is really really appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your time.

hrtestingtable.zip

I think this behaves more or less along the lines of what you want. I added TOs instead of changing yours, so you might want to tidy things up in the Relationship Graph.

Hope this helps!

hrtestingtableModif.fp7.zip

Thanks... that seems to be just what I wanted... but could you tell me the theory behind this and why it works?

Thanks bunches