I'm very new to relational databases and have found a lot of information here that's similar to this topic, but that doesn't quite solve my problem, and I'd greatly appreciate some help.

I'm developing a database and having difficulty with three tables in particular; people, projects, and outreach. (Please see the attached relationship diagram for the structure.) Each layout for each table has a portal that displays related entries, so for example from the people layout you can see what outreach and projects that person has done. The problem is that I am unable to create projects and related outreach that have different authors(people). I understand why this is happening, but I don't know how to fix it. I need the projects to be able to have multiple authors from the people table, but a related outreach entry could have completely different authors, but still be associated with a project.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to set up relationships to allow the above scenario? Thank you very much for your time.

I need the projects to be able to have multiple authors from the people table

Assuming the opposite is also true (i.e. a person can have multiple projects), you need a join table between People and Projects.

I am not sure what an "outreach" is and how it relates - in real life - to people and projects.

Yeah, just needed the additions of join tables and proper TOG (Table Occurrence Group).

I have attached a quick demo file for you to review, hopefully I did not miss the mark and this will help you out.

ProjectDemo.fp7.zip

Thank you Dr. Evil! I'm working on restructuring my database now, but it looks like your solution will work perfectly! Thank you very much...I've been struggling with this for quite some time now.

I am not sure what an "outreach" is and how it relates - in real life - to people and projects.

For what its worth, outreach would be any sort of presentation or demonstration. It would be given by a person and relate to work done on a project. For example, if someone were to do research on a watershed and present that to a classroom, that would be an outreach item.

Ok, so I've run into another issue. Using the model Dr. Evil posted above, I'd like to be able to have a portal from the people table to display the outreach that a person has done. However, I'm not sure how to set this up; I've put a TO of the outreach and related it directly to the people table, but no records are displayed. I'm assuming that's because there's nothing that indicates that a particular record is related to another in that TOG, but I'm not sure how to fix this issue.

Thank you so much for your help!

I'd like to be able to have a portal from the people table to display the outreach that a person has done.

In the PEP~People TOG, you have to set up the relationships using both the Author join table AND the Outreach table.

I have modified the demo file and attached to show what I mean.

ProjectDemo_02.fp7.zip