Automatic Data Updating

[Artgirl]

I have been working on a tournament registration solution that allows participants to login year after year and register for competitive events. This is the first full year of publication and I discovered that the age of the competitor does not refresh at the start of the new year. This is problematic as the events that a competitor is eligible for changes with their age. How can I get FM to automatically "refresh" or update the age field on my competitors? Currently I have to manually re-enter a portion of the birthdate of each competitor to get the refresh to occur. Thanks for your input!

[comment]

Make the age calculation unstored.

[Artgirl]

Thank you... but I'm not sure how to do that. I also realized that in my previous post that I forgot to mention that the age I have to use is a calculated age. This competition only allows competitors to compete in divisions based on their age as of Jan 1 of the current year. I have that part working correctly, now just to get it to update... However, I did check on the field set-up under Manage Database > Options > Storage and nothing was selected. I noticed that you operate FMP 7, I'm not sure but I think you have the option of selecting a "recalculate as needed" option next to the field indexing options. In my version of FMP 9, that option is gone. Is that what you meant by "unstored"? Thanks.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Guest

[comment]

Yes, but you need to be careful because there are TWO ages here, and they need to be treated differently:

The age of a person in their own record is a changing attribute, and it needs to be an unstored calculation (select 'Do not store calculation results…' in Storage Options).

The age of a registrant in a Registration record is the age of the person AT THE TIME OF THE EVENT (as defined by the rules of the event), and it needs to be permanent.

[Artgirl]

Yes, you're right I see that now. So is the solution to have the competitors re-enter their birthdates each year when they login to the website to register for events? Just make them update their user profiles before event registration? I'm uncertain as to how to create the most "user-friendly" option. Suggestions?

[Lee Smith]

See if this thread helps. Although the files are old, the should convert to your version ok. Link, I think Ray updated his on his site.

Lee

Edited March 31, 2009 by Guest
Took to long again :(

[Artgirl]

Thank you all so much for your help. I hope I can return the favor someday. I visited the post and I think between the two of you and your suggestions ~ I'll be there. Thanks a million.

[comment]

I don't know the details of your solution, so it's difficult to be specific. In general, a person should enter their birthdate only once. This would be stored in their "profile", i.e. in a table of people.

When they register for a specific event, their age needs to be calculated. Be careful NOT to use Get (CurrentDate) in this calculation. If the determining age is as of Jan 1 of the year of event, and the person is registering in December for an event in January - well, you can imagine. The calculation should use the person's birthdate and the event's date as the sole input.