This is a school record management application for a vocational institution. My problem is with the following part. I have tables: Student, Program (uses a code for each program that student is enrolled in), Supply (this is a listing of items that are given to the student based on the program and the semester they are in, things like manicure set, brush, blower, etc.). I use a portal to enter these items for each program. Now I have this working fine, the relationships are fine (the program - supply ) that is.

Now what I want to do is for any given student, have another table (say newsupply) that contains the same info from the Supply table plus additional fields like Date (date when item was given to the student) so that when I open this student record I can (by means of a button) copy the list of items from the Supply table that correspond to the program the student is enrolled in and copy them to the newsupply table, allowing the user to enter the date when the item was given . I am unsure as to how to best go about this and how to do it.

I thought about using find, export, import but unsure as to how a script would look like and what would be needed. I need it to check to see if items have been copied so that activating the button does not perform a duplicity or at least a warning of some sort. I thank you in advance.

that contains the same info from the Supply table plus additional fields like Date

You might not have noticed that filemaker is a relational database, this means that your idea - how humble it might seem is wrong, with one single exception though. The data you need somewhere else is a historic registration of something that might change over time - otherwise is it a flawed reasoning I'm afraid.

When dealing with relational databases are data referenced by ID'ing. This means in your case should only the ID numbers be transfered, and here could import as you mention it be a way, but other measures exist:

http://edoshin.skeletonkey.com/2006/02/options.html#more

...just to mention one!

--sd

Yes, you are right. A problem when moving from flat-file to relational, there are roads that seem correct but are dead ends. Thanks for the link, I am taking time to go over and rethink the manner that I am approaching this. As you point out the data is there and I am not properly looking at the relationship that is in front of me. I thank you and your kind approach.

I just stumbled over this, reminding me of your question:

http://www.fmcollective.com/2007/04/creating_multip.html

--sd

Thanks, a viable solution since the list record size from the child records are no more than 30 at the most for a given program of study, and there are no more than 4 to 5 programs of study at the most. I tried experimenting with the export to the found set and it was quite fast, but somewhere I need to add the studentID to those records so that they belong to the particular student. I am at that stage.

It's just two fields to map in the import dialog???

--sd