To track a meeting.

[Achineche]

I want to keep the track of meetings.

I have, meetings, points of the meeting and participants tables.

I’ve done a relationship between meetings table and participants one through MeetingID, so I can say who participates in the meeting. But I don’t know how to go further.

What I want to do is: set a meeting, set the different point to work on, and when the meeting comes set the people that participate. Then I need the different points to be individually voted.

I’ll try to explain with an example:

Meeting (day 02/14/2011)

Point 1: salaries increase, Point 2: expenses, Point 3: holidays...

When the meeting takes place, I set the participants:

John, Mary, Paul....

And working on the points

Point 1 votes: to a salary increase... all yes (lol), Point 2 votes: 3 no, 2 yes, Point 3 votes: 4 no, 1 yes.

I don’t know how to make the relationships to make it work. The logical idea for me is that there’s only one meeting and different points of if and different participants but now I get blocked, how to work with points individually but been part of the meeting? Participants should be related to the meeting but to the exact point of the exact meeting too. I have still very few knowledge in FM to make this work.

I bet I’m doing it too complicated.

Thanks for your help.

[comment]

Do you need to record individual votes, e.g. 'on point #2 John voted yes' or just the tally?

[Achineche]

Many thanks Comment for the quick answer, and the important question.

I need them individually, because I have to make some calcs with the votes to see the majorities.

Each of the participants have a percentage of a total, and the point will be approved or rejected depending on two majorities, participants and quotas.

I think I can manage the calcs, because I have been working on it but “plain”, points been part of the meeting record (I can only relate participants to one-all points). But I’ve been working on the calcs and I think they work more or less fine by now.

The thing is to individualise the different points of a given meeting and they must use its exclusive participants.

[comment]

I need them individually

I'm afraid you have lost me right after that... I think you are describing something like:

[Achineche]

Sorry about that.↲

I’ll try to explain myself with an example↲

One meeting that has 6 points to discuss and a number of potential participants.I make a new meeting-record.↲

Now I have to set the different points for that meeting (then I send it to the potential participants, they can come to the meeting or not).↲

The meeting day. I set the participants that came. (Ten for example)↲

The meeting begins, we go to the first point, we discuss... time for voting, I need there the list of participants of the meeting, to select yes, no, abstention.↲

Next point, the same, and so on.My idea has been treating the meeting like an invoice where participants are like different lines of it, but there, is as far as I can go. I don’t know how to set the different points and relate them all.↲

Thanks again.

[comment]

time for voting, I need there the list of participants of the meeting, to select yes, no, abstention.

But if you want to record individual votes, you need more than that: you need a table of Votes, where each record represents the vote of participant X on point Y. In your example of 10 participants and 6 points to vote on, that will be 60 records in the Votes table.

[Achineche]

So I got the need and an idea that is not gonna work, that means ... I got nothing. Well, I still got the need.

Any help to drive me through and to the good way?

Thank you very much.

[comment]

I am not sure where you are stuck with this - I thought I gave the answer in post #4.

[Achineche]

Ok, I'll give it a try and I'll tell you about my progress, and when I get stuck.

Thanks

[Achineche]

I’m working on your graph.

People (PeopleID, meetingID, quota)

Attendance (peopleID, meetingID, voteID) ??

Meeting (MeetingID, peopleID, PointID)

Points (PointID, meetingID, voteID)

Votes (VoteID, pointID, ...)

My (I think clear) relationships:

MEETING-meetingID-POINTS

POINTS-pointID-VOTES

Questions:

Why attendance and vote tables are double lined, what does that mean?

I don’t understand attendance table. Should be related to people through peopleID, to meeting through meetingID and to votes through voteID?

Thank you.

[Achineche]

I correct myself.

I've made a few mistakes in the above post.

I now understand what the attendance table is for.

Relationships:

POINTS-pointID+meetingID-VOTES

I can’t make the relationships as I see in your schema, it prompts to duplicate tables.

I’m in this point now, and a bit lost.

Meetings.zip

[comment]

A few quick points:

1. In a one-to--many relationship, it is the child's job to remember who its parent is. Accordingly, there is no room for a MeetingID field in the People table, etc.:

People - PeopleID, Quota

Attendance - AttendanceID, PeopleID, MeetingID

Meetings - MeetingID

Points - PointID, MeetingID

Votes - VoteID, PointID, AttendanceID (or PeopleID), Vote

2. My diagram is an ERD - not a relationships graph. In order to implement it in Filemaker, you do need multiple occurrences of some tables on the graph - for example:

[Achineche]

Thinking this is getting too big for my knowledge and trying to learn many basic things I’ve left behind (I’ve been studying), now I think I’m able to “read” your EDR correctly. Thinking relational is still another thing.

I understand Entities are:

People

Meetings

Points

Why not Votes?

The relationships I can think of are:

1 Meeting many People

1 Meeting many Points

1 People many Meetings

1 People 1 Vote, but in many Points of 1 Meeting (I can’t manage this one)

1 Point 1 Meeting

1 Point many Votes

1 Vote 1 People

So I have:

1 many-to-many relationship, people-join table (attendance)-meeting

1 meeting many points and 1 point 1 meeting = 1 one-to-many?

1 one-to-many, point-votes

I get lost in people and votes.

Thank you for your patience.

[comment]

I understand Entities are:

People

Meetings

Points

Why not Votes?

Why not, indeed? And why not count Attendance as well? It is a "weak entity", but an entity nevertheless.

Votes could be seen as a join table between People and Points: one person votes on many points, and one point has many people voting on it.

[Achineche]

In your ERD Votes appear as a join table between points and another join table attendance (meeting-people), does that mean that attendance works like people in that case or was just a mistake?

[comment]

It's a matter of convenience which table you choose. Strictly speaking, only attendants of a meeting can vote on a point related to that meeting - that's what the ERD shows. But it will work with the People table, too.

[Achineche]

I can’t make this work.

I can generate the people who goes to the meeting, generate the different points, but I can’t make votes of the different points work correctly.

What I’d like to accomplish is:

To make the whole work form the meeting layout.

Making a new meeting, setting the different assistants, the different points of the meeting, then each of them should be automatically populated with all the assistants set before, and then set every points’ vote of each of the assistants.

I attach two files, my FM file as it is now (I have made a lot of changes but I think I’m in the same place as this last days) and a png format file showing what I’d like to accomplish.

Thanks to all.

Juntas.zip

[comment]

Here's a rough sketch of a possible approach. It still needs a lot of a work to make it slick, but the basic idea should be clear.

Note: the tab control object is not suitable as a portal substitute.

JuntasVotos.zip

[Achineche]

Thank you very much Comment, I really appreciate your help. It works perfectly.

The reason why I want to use tab panels is because I have two fields in points table where I have to put many text (a normal portal row doesn’t fit that need): point explanation and the development of the point during the meeting.

I think it works, I can see only one problem by now.

As you can see I have used a script (scrip trigger in PointID field-meeting layout) that automatically generates vote records for the assistants in that particular point. I’m sure the script is not very well finished but it works by now (I’ve grabbed the ideas from the forum).

Could it be possible to use the pointID to filter votes portal in meeting layout so we can see only the ones related to that point instead of the global field. (Already working in points layout).

Thanks again for your incredible help.

Sorry i missed the file I wanted to attach.

JuntasVotos2.zip

[comment]

I have two fields in points table where I have to put many text (a normal portal row doesn’t fit that need)

A portal row can be as tall as you want.

automatically generates vote records for the assistants in that particular point.

Why is this necessary? In my demo, vote records are created by recording the actual votes, eliminating redundant empty records.

Could it be possible to use the pointID to filter votes portal in meeting layout so we can see only the ones related to that point instead of the global field. (Already working in points layout).

Not sure what you mean by that (I see no filtered portal in the points layout).

[Achineche]

I have tried to combine your way with my look and for me it works.

I used triggers in the tabs panel and in some field to set the pointID into the global field so I can’t make mistakes (I made some before) and always show the correct pointID.

Thank you very much Comment.

I attach the file, it’s 99,99% Comment's and 0,01% my stubbornness.

Juntas v2.5.zip

[Achineche]

I have another issue.

There’s people who can be an assistant but they can’t vote.

Now, I mark them in red in the assistant’s list, but how could I prevent them to appear in the votes list.

Thank you.

[comment]

Something like this?

JuntasVotos+.zip

[Achineche]

I really don't know how to thank you.

It's incredible how you share your time and your knowledge altruistically with others.

It will take me some time to understand it and make it fit in my DB, but I think that's exactly what I need.

I'll let you know.

[Achineche]

Any advice about why my "votos" script doesn't work properly?

All goes ok but the second time that goes into the loop, variables don't pick the right values.

Thank you.

JuntasVotos+Script.zip

[comment]

What is the script supposed to do?

[Achineche]

What I'm trying to do is to pick up the assistants, points, votes... to make a preview field and then export it to a word processor.

The assistants script works, but the votes one doesn't.

[comment]

to pick up the assistants, points, votes...

But there are many points. If you want to list all votes in a meeting, on all points of the meeting, you should go to related records in Votes - not Votes 2, which will only show votes for the currently selected point.

Or simply show them in a portal to Votes.

[Achineche]

What i want to accomplish is:

To mix all together.

Assistants to the meeting

Point 1

It's development

It's votes

Point 2

It's development

It's votes

and so on

By now I can do it with assitants and points, but I can't with votes.

[Achineche]

Well, I think it’s going ok now, the script is taking about 60 lines long by now but it works. It's getting real complicated for me but I never thought I could do this and such long... .

When I have a bit of time, I'll copy it to the demo file and attach it, so it may help others with little knowledge as me. Now is implemented in my DB, because i need real data to see if it works

The issue I have now is that I need the DB to “remember” the status of an assistant in the moment I convoke the meeting that can be different from the one had when the meeting takes place, and different from today.

Any advise?

Thank you.

[comment]

I need the DB to “remember” the status of an assistant in the moment I convoke the meeting that can be different from the one had when the meeting takes place, and different from today.

I believe a lookup of status into the join table would take care of that.

[Achineche]

I have used that idea for other purposes and worked fine.

I believe it's a matter of relationships based on dates and I'm pretty weak in relationships by now (DB relationships no others )

When I convoke a meeting (about a week before that takes place) I have to list those who haven't paid their fees, but the day of the meeting, some of them may be updated and they can join the meeting. That's one point.

Another one is that few months later, all of them can have paid all their fees, and if I take a look of pass meetings the DB is going to show me wrong information. That's why I need real data depending on a date.

Thanks again comment for your help.