Help...very very stuck

[ladeewzl]

I have been through this website a little and it seems as though many discussions touch on one or two elements of my problem, but none ever really help me. Not to mention - I don't really do well with reading instructions. It helps if I have a walk-through so I can perform the functions I need when I am learning something new.

Here is my problem: I own a trucking company and I need to keep track of which states my truck operates in and how many miles it operates in each state. I also have to record how many gallons of fuel is put into the tank in each state. This info gets reported to the gov't each quarter.

You will see in the file I have attached (which is an exact dupe of the one I use), I have worked up a simple data entry page where I can keep track of miles per state (lower left-hand corner) and fuel consumed (lower right center.)

If my data looks like this:

Trip 1

CO 15

WY 40

Trip 2

WY 60

NE 30

CO 20

Trip 3

CO 50

WY 10

NE 10

I need the printed output (I have layouts for each miles and gallons) to look like this

CO 85

WY 110

NE 40

Total 335

(Gallons consumed would look similar in raw data and would need to produce a like printed outcome.)

How do I make Filemaker do this?

I have a very limited knowledge of filemaker beyond creating fields for text entry and printing. My knowledge of relational databases, calculations, summary fields, portals, tables, and everything else I keep reading about is Nil.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks in advance.

ladeewzl

Trip_Management.zip

[Søren Dyhr]

Here is my problem: I own a trucking company and I need to keep track of which states my truck operates in and how many miles it operates in each state. I also have to record how many gallons of fuel is put into the tank in each state. This info gets reported to the gov't each quarter.

Which is a kind of summary report, but your use of repeating fields is preventing you from making easy statistics on your data. This means that some kind of relational structure is an ugent requirement, unless the one who tought you to use repeating fields can come up with something better.

I guess that you have looked at the templates following the app. and kind of extend that mindset. But it's a riddle to a lot of devlopers why the use of repeating fields have found their way to the initial templates and I for one would like that ROI centric person fry in his own fat or juices for eternal time.

It's plain and simply wrong what the templates does, if relational approches have any point this far. In my humble opinion is normalized structures designed with ease in slicing and dicing the data into information, and not just something fancy!

Take a look how I and a lot of developers think data is going to be structured:

http://www.filemakerpros.com/joinprint.zip

--sd

[Fenton]

This is apparently my day for converting repeating fields. See my earlier post. Fortunately it's pretty easy to do.

I did the State miles, in its own table. That is where you would do reports on totals per state per date range, etc.. You did not yet have a date range Find, so your "quarter" was not yet happening. But any total will be the Summary of Odometer In.

I didn't do the other repeats. But you should.

Trip Number should be an auto-entered serial ID. But, since it's not, and I wasn't sure where it came from, I validated it to be not empty and unique.

It was possible, as you can see, to import all the data from the existing repeats to separate records. It's an option during Import.

Trip_Management_fej.zip

[bruceR]

And here's my version with more changes.

Trip_Management.zip

[ladeewzl]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Fenton. What you did worked. I still have a small but workable issue of it finding. What I was doing before was finding by quarter (IFTA Management) and then trying to print. I have adjusted my scripts to get me to the print screens in browse mode with all records showing. Now I just find by the quarter criteria I need, sort, and print.

AND...true to my word, I went back through what you did to figure it out, and I have a MUCH better understanding of relationships and portals. I never have been able to learn anything the other way around (read and then do)

Also, thank you for not changing anything else in the db. I realize that some of you more knowledgeable guys like to play and add it little tips and tricks that you know in an effort to help, but you only really messed with what I asked you to...Thank you.

Now I can give my calculator and my calculator finger a break every quarter when I pay my IFTA taxes. :

Thanks again,

Ladeewzl