A Not-Very-Experienced Developer's Problems...

[Deadchicken]

Hi there, I'm DC, I haven't been working with Filemaker for more than a few weeks, but I think I've started to get the hang of various functions and such.

I am, however having real trouble with one particular part of my database. This Database is for a Healthcare company, providing Carers for the Sick, Elderly and Disabled. It records details of both the carers, and the clients for whom they care. it is a little more complext but that's the general gist of things.

My problem is this, I need the database to be able to show the user which of the carers are available for appointments on a day to day basis, and show them in some sort of overview. So this would rely on the Carer's Availability Falling at the same time as the Client's appointment needs.

This is The Carer's Availability Page:

And the Client's Appointment page looks like this:

Any help, or direction would be greatly appreciated, I'm not sure if this is strictly a solely script related problem, but I think its related nonetheless. I've been stuck on this speed bump for a good few days now, and I'm starting to grow frustrated with it...

Edit:

Ideally, I want to be able to see which carers are available on any given day, and which appointments need to be filled, perhaps an easier way to do this is to have a separate layout altogether, which would list who is available on days, and which appointments need to be filled, then maybe have that link to their respective layouts. ofcourse it would need to dynamically update their availability, as they would be unavailable to do more than one appointment at a time, obviously....

Edited August 23, 2010 by Guest

[Cabinetman]

Problems of my own and prob. not much ahead of you but....

I'm thinking set up a relationship based on

Carers::day available = Clients::appointment day

Then put a portal on the Clients page??

... or the like... gotta run for few but maybe this will give you an idea.

[comment]

Instead of a script related problem, this should be a relationship issue. However, before it can become one, you need to get your data structure right:

First and foremost, appointments should be in a table of their own. As a rule of thumb, whenever you have numbered fields such as Appointment 1, Appointment 2 … you're on the wrong path.

The attachment shows two possible data models that could be used here.

[Fitch]

Welcome to FMForums. You are tackling a decidedly non-beginner problem. My advice is to grab the free calendar here:

http://www.seedcode.com/cp-app/ste_cat/filemakercalendar

[Deadchicken]

Thank you all for your replies, I'm starting to see where you're coming from here, I had a feeling I was creating an unnecessary amount of fields and work for myself.

Thanks again, I'll see what I can do from here.