Display information dynamically

[mxisaac]

Hey guys. I've sort of been thrown into this whole filemaker ordeal. I'd love some help with a problem I'm having.

The database I set up is for recording work orders for our editors and assistant editors. The work order itself includes things such as job name, number, editor, assistant editor, producer, as well as time in/time out, overtime, total hours worked... that sort of stuff.

Now, what I've set up is it will generate a time sheet for an entered week using the name of the person entered. It will search in both the assistant editor and editor field (because some people will assistant on some projects, and sometimes they are editors on others). Now, time sheets MUST have both assistant editor and editor times on them. When it searches the editor field, it uses the total time from the editor, when it searches the assistant field, it searches the total time for the assistant; it then adds these together to produce a total for the day, then adds the week together for the total of the week.

I need to create a breakdown at the bottom of the page showing in/out, OT, and total time for each day for each job. How do I set it up so it can generate a list of assistant in/out, and then a list of editor in/out?

Another way of wording it is... is there a way to dynamically generate different fields depending on certain parameters when displaying multiple entries in the preview mode.

Edited October 4, 2007 by Guest

[mickeyfinn]

I am not an expert, but I think I can get you started with the basics, assuming you have not got this far already.

Seems to me that you need 3 main tables, Employees, Work Orders and Time (you may also want tables for Customers/Clients, Cost etc). Employees just has a list of employees each with a record ID field which is a match field (i.e. it relates to an Employee ID field) in the Time table. Time records will relate in the same manner to both Employees and Work Oriders (since a time record will include who worked that time period, on which work order and in what role - Editor, Asst. Editor).

Unlike the way you described, the role will be a single field with a value list of possible job types in a time record. This will simplify reporting, since you can group Time reports by related Employee, Work Order or by the role field. Time records will similarly also include a field to specify whether they are standard/overtime hours.

A combination of calculation fields should allow you to extract the type of time data you will need to do weekly, monthly, yearly reports (get (dayname)/(weeknumber)/(MonthName) etc.) so you can group by these. Then reports will find the records to include and include sub-summaries by the fields you wish to group by.

I think this is enough to get you started. I can probably answer a few more questions if you need. Hope this helps!