Linking Databases?

[Matt_07]

Hey Everyone,

New to this forum and Filemaker Pro. I am running version 5 on a Mac and am trying to create an Employee time sheet for our office.

There are 10 Employees - each must enter the number of hours spent on a project, what project, and what activity they did on the project.

Each employee is to fill out a Filemaker form on the computer and then all 10 are to be hooked up to one master file which will allow the accountant to click print on specific reports.

EG "Print all Projects John has worked on."

"Print all Work done on Project X."

Q. Is this the most efficient way to organise such a system?

Q. How can I link all 10 databases to 1 master report printing database?

PS I've had a peek at the Time Billing database - it's not quite what I'm trying to achieve but sort of on the same track.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! Maybe someone can point me in the direction of a database like I've mentioned that has already been set up.

Thanks again!

[Ender]

Hi Matt,

It's much easier to relate things and maintain the files if you have users login to hosted databases instead of trying to coordinate files on separate computers. For this to work, one computer (hopefully a computer that's dedicated to this) is the host, setup with FileMaker built-in Sharing (NOT OS file sharing), and the other computers login to that using File->Open Remote. Each computer would need it's own license of FileMaker Pro.

This way you only have one copy of the files. Records can still be filtered to only show the selected user's records. Reports can be run at any time, from any computer, finding any of the data that's currently in the system.

The relational design for your specific requirements is a whole separate issue from this basic network architecture, and is probably best presented in a separate thread where you lay out all the requirements of your system.

[Matt_07]

Hey everyone,

I posted a thread last week about my problem, that is, finding the most efficient way to create timesheets using one license of filemaker pro. I was hoping to have 10 separate filemaker forms, all hooked up to one master from which reports could be printed. Someone advised me to work out the relationship/architecture of the system first. This is what I have so far but I need some guidance. :

EmployeeID>

Date

Project

Activity

Hours

Comments

I am hoping to be able to print off reports from the master filemaker pro file only which would allow me to print such things as "Employee X's work from 11/11/06 until 12/12/06". I think I may need to create a "many-to-many" relationship? Where each of the entities above link to the same thing in the master file?

Is this possible or am I dreaming? :