Automatically Entering Data in one field based on the value of another

[synergy711]

I know this is probably a simple question, but I'm new to actually messing with the guts of filemaker.

I work for a university, and we have a drop down field with a finite number of Majors we can choose. These major are listed like "JOUR Journalism". Now I've created another field called "College" that I want to automatically be filled in with the appropriate college that the particular major falls into (So, selecting JOUR Journalism from the drop-down menu for major would then automatically fill out "College of Communication and Education" in the College field.

My question is basically how I go about doing this. There isn't anything else in the database that works like this, so I can't just copy and edit that, and I know it must have something to do with defining which majors go to which college.

I really appreciate any help with this, and thanks in advance.

[bcooney]

Firstly, it is highly recommended to switch from using the text description of a Major as a relationship match. So, rather than a dropdown list of Majors in what I assume is the Student file, you should have a popup menu of Major IDs. Then Students would relate to Majors by Student::_kF_MajorID = Major:__kP_MajorID.

Assuming that a Major can only have one College associated with it, then the Major record needs to store that Colleges ID (you need a table of Colleges),rather than the College name.

Then, on the Student Record, you'd create a conditional value list using a relation from Student to Major (by MajorID) to Colleges. This assumes that a Student has only one major.

Demo Attached

Post301519.zip