I have a database where a user can enter an amount of time (mm:ss) for each record. Within that record I have a value list that shows up in the form of a check box. The value lists obviously only has one value. It functions as a check box the user can use when completing a certain phase. If it's checked that phase is done.

What I'd like to do is to make some sort of calculation so that the user can observe the total time (mm:ss) remaing amongst all the records. So as the user checks off a phase for a record they would be able to see how much time is remaining amongst all the records.

I'm guessing it would start as an if function, but I'm not sure.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance.

DeadLineTime - Evaluate(Get(CurrentTime);theCheckBox) comes to mind....

--sd

I may need a little more hand holding to grasp that.

To redefine and give example. I look at each record as if it were a song that is set given length. That song will go through different phases. ie; written, demo recorded, final record, etc... As you go through the project you can check off these phases as you complete them. If I can get a calc to work it would then show you somewhere on the page (perhaps a summary) how much time is remainig on each of the phases, because obviously you'd have other songs too. That way a user could say "how much time do I have left to record?".

I appreciate your help. Please be specific in your answer if possible as I'm a amateur filemaker guy.

Sounds like you could use a summary field and the getSummary function to sort it by a breakfield. Something like

GetSummary(TimeSum; Unchecked)

Where TimeSum is a summary field of Time, and Unchecked is your chekbox.

I am not clear on what you are trying to do - get the time remaining for procedures on the currentrecord, or all records that are unchecked?

Are you trying to sum the time of the song, or the time it takes to work on the song?

I'm trying to basically sum all the records. So at a begining of a project I can put in the 10 songs we're working on and their lengths. It will then give me a overall total showing how many off minutes there are and then it will break down by phase As i start to check phases off in records the total for that phase goes down. That way I can look and see that I have 20:00 out of 30:00 left to record etc...

Let me know if that doesn't make sense.

GetSummary(TimeSum; Unchecked) should do what you want.

Keep in mind that you cannot break by a related field, so the summary would have to be in the table that holds the song lengths.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure if I quite understand. Is "Unchecked" a function word? Also, I don't know what you're referring to as far as a break.

Sorry for my confusion and thanks again for your help.

Unchecked is a field name I chose to represent your breakfield. You will need to use a field that contains the same value as all the remaining records you would like to break by. For example, if you defined TimeSum as a summary of all Time fields, and toggled Status field between "Edit" and "Done"

GetSummary(TimeSum; Status) would display the sum for all "Edit"records when you marked Edit, and all "Done" records when you marked done.

Hi stealth 162

May be a little sample file helps !?

I use a calculation field (unstored) and two summery fields.

May be not very elegant but simple ;-)

TimeLeft.fp7.zip

Edited June 28, 200619 yr by Guest

Can't quite get it to work. If you wouldn't mind I could email you the file. If you have time to take a look send me a private message with your email and I'll send you the file.

One of the benefits of this Forum is that you can Post your file here.

Not only will there be more helpful eyes looking at it, you might get a speeder reply, as you wont be depended on just one person's schedule.

HTH

Lee

I worked with stealth162 privately on this on weds (he had some sensitive info he did not want to post it).

Instead of a summary field, we decided to arrange this through relationships to the same Table using a different TO for each checkbox status.

new stored calc field 'cPhase1' with just text in the field:

"Phase1"

New Phase1 TO based on original table

cPhase1=Status

then unstored calc field 'cPhase1Sum':

sum(Phase1::Time)

repeat for each status phase.

We chose this instead of a summary field as the workflow suggested that being able to isolate project record by status would be helpful (not just finding the sum), so this should be reflected in the relational structure.

Some deeper problems were noted, especially the fact that there was no structure in place to group songs from each project (currently, each record in the project table was considered part of the same large project).

I suggested a separate Projects table that would relate to the Song Table

ProjectID=ProjectID

as a starting point.

-Raz