Hey,

So I have a solution where we identify each user by a 3 digit number. I have an 'employee' table that has the three digit number plus all the other employee info. I use this table as a look up table ALL THE TIME so I can portal their full name or short name into reports, layouts, etc. It works pretty good, the employee enters "123"and Bob Smith automatically appears.

The question I have about the design is that I use this method in virutually every table I have as each employee creates records in the tables. As time has gone by and we've added more tables, each table is inadvertently related because of the Employee table, which isn't causing any problems, but the relationship window looks like a spider's web with the center spoke being the employee table.

Is this wrong?

Is there a better way to portal that info in without causing table relationships to occur all the time?

Just wondering if anyone else does this.

Vandy

Check out chapter 4:

http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/FMDev_ConvNov05.pdf

Also you may want to read here:

http://www.kevinfrank.com/anchor-buoy.html