I have a database that works without issue. In it, I have a one to many relationship (Personnel - The One/PDFs - The Many). In the Personnel table, the ID consists of Left (LastName;3 ) & Left ( :FirstName ;2) & 0 & 0 & 0 ) or ACASA000.

The PDF container files I want to integrate with this personnel table have the same Left (LastName;3 ) & Left ( FirstName ;2) & 0 & 0 & 0 plus extender i. e. -09242010 or ACASA000-09242010

Question:

How do I import the container files (the Many) to properly connect to personnel (the One)? I have the PDF ID and PDF name files ready to go into the system but don't know how to do the import without drag and drop as there are over 6000 files to contend with. Any help on this would be terrific.

TIA

remoran.

FMP can import from a folder. If the file names are consistent then a calculation field can parse the file name and generate the key.

Why import them? Also, you say you already have two tables and a relation between them. So are the PDFs already imported?

If you import the PDFs you can make a calc based on file name, left( filename; 8) and relate that to the ID.

Note that the person ID can be expressed as Left (LastName;3 ) & Left ( FirstName ;2) & "000"

Note also that this is a somewhat fragile ID system as you may make name typos or you may get name changes.

Thank you for helping me. I am going to change the personnel schema as you are right about the fragility bit. I know enough about FM to be dangerous but not an expert by any means. Let's hope this works.

Best

Bob

Does your calculation cover the extensions of the PDF names? When it comes to calculations, I am a true newbie. :

Question, I have the imports done, PDFscans and PDFID are done and work perfectly but I still don't understand how to connect the PDFID (the many), to the PersonnelID (the one) in order to populate the personnel portal as the first 8 characters of both IDs are the same, as you well know, but the extensions make the PDFID differ, as they should, from the personnelID.

I am so close on this but need expertise I don't have to make it happen. TIA

Bob