Auto-complete Portal Fields

[jklick]

Hello,

I have a portal that I am using for entering data on various contacts (which is stored in a CONTACTS table) that are associated with a particular piece of media (found in the MEDIA table). I have it setup so that the name of the contact auto-completes based on previous entries. However, it would save a lot of time if the other fields (address, phone number, etc.) would also auto-complete based on name selection. In other words, if I type in a name that already exists, the other fields that are associated with that contact will automatically populate.

Is there way to do this with my current setup? Hopefully, I've provided enough information. If I haven't, I'm more than willing to clarify some more.

Thank you in advance.

[Tim W]

Hi,

In field definitions, set the auto entry to lookup the value based upon the contact name field.

HTH,

Tim

[jklick]

Thank you! I'll give that a shot.

[comment]

Why do you need to duplicate contact information in the media table, when it's available through the relationship?

[jklick]

Very good question. Let me clarify a bit.

The contacts and the media are found in separate tables and are tied together via a relationship. Each media item frequently has multiple contacts attached to it, so we use a portal to accomplish this. However, we frequently encounter that multiple media items have similar contacts, so we're looking to reduce data entry time by implementing this auto-complete feature.

Did that help?

[comment]

You are describing a many-to-many relationship: a media item can have many contacts, and a contact can have many media items. In most cases, this is best handled by a join table - see, for example:

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showpost.php?post/246136/

[jklick]

Okay, I have the join table. That works perfectly.

Media_Table (1:n) SourceType_Table (n:1) SourceInfo_Table

However, I'm still unable to do the auto-filling of my source info in the portal. I tried setting auto-entry to lookup based on Source_Name, but it isn't working for me.

Once again, your help is appreciated.

[comment]

I am not sure what you have done, so I don't know how to answer this. Note that in my demo, the relationships are based on serial ID's, not names - and therefore will not break when a name is changed.

More importantly, my original question still stands: why do you need to duplicate source info in the join table, when it's available "live" through the relationship? Look at all the fields in italics in the demo file.

[jklick]

Let me see if I can shed some more light on this by excerpting my project a bit. I don't believe I am duplicating any data (trying my best to keep my database normalized), but feel free to rough me up a bit if I'm wrong (I've got thick skin).

MEDIA_TABLE (MediaID, MediaName)

SOURCE_TABLE (SourceID, Name, Address, Phone)

SOURCETYPE_TABLE (SourceTypeID, MediaID, SourceID, SourceType)

MEDIA_TABLE -- 1:n -- SOURCETYPE_TABLE -- n:1 -- SOURCE_TABLE

For each piece of media, there are different types of sources (SourceType): Rights Owner, Rights Contact, Viewing Source, etc. The people/organizations listed in the SOURCE_TABLE are used to fill these roles. Sometimes sources are used across multiple media items and sometimes a source will be used multiple times within a single media item (ex. a person is both the viewing source AND rights owner).

The setup I have for my portal entry contains the following fields: SourceType, Name, Address, Phone. Upon choosing the SourceType (via dropdown box), the user then proceeds to fill in the rest of the fields. The name field is set to be an auto-fill field based on previous entries. I am hoping to make the rest of the fields auto-fill as well, if the name field happens to match a record in the SOURCE_TABLE.

Thank you again for your help. Hopefully, this exhibits the situation well enough. I apologize in advance if I'm missing something really simple and obvious.

[comment]

That all seems good - until you get to the last paragraph.

If you are on a layout of Media, looking at a portal into the join table, your portal should have two ENTERABLE fields:

SOURCETYPE_TABLE::SourceID

SOURCETYPE_TABLE::SourceType

All the other fields (Name, Address, Phone) should be non-enterable, and they should come from the Source table (the occurrence connected to the other side of the join table). Once you select the SourceID (not name*), a relationship will be established, and the source's name, address and phone will be displayed.

---

(*) you can SHOW the source name while selecting from a value list - but you need to select and enter the source ID.