Unique Portal Serial Number

[Shipbuilder]

The portal that I have created has seven rows and each row has a serial number. The problem is that I need each row's serial to be unique. As of right now, the serial numbers auto enter as the

same number (i.e. all seven rows have the serial number of 91, but I need 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, and then 97). How would I go about making this happen?

Thanks,

Tony

[bcooney]

Hello Tony,

Records in tables (whether they're displayed in a list view, or via a relationship in a portal) should always be assigned a unique ID. Do you have a field in the table that is displayed in the portal that stores a unique ID (such as an auto-entered serial number)?

Are you sure that the field in the portal is from the same TO on which the portal is based? This is, if the portal is based on the table occurrence, Invoice_InvoiceLineItems, then the LineItemID field should also be from that context.

hth,

Barbara

[Shipbuilder]

Barbara,

Yes I have a field named Serial Number that is displayed in the table and it is set to auto-enter the serial number on "creation". Also, yes the serial

number is from the same table on which the portal is based. However, this is a requisition form and in the relationship, the requisition number

in the child table equals serial number in the parent table so that once the requisition number is selected via a pop-up list on a seperate form, all of

the related records are shown via the relationship. I don't have a problem with all of the IDs being the same in a single portal until I try to implement

a way to omit a record on the purchase order form at which time it omits all of the records in the portal because they all have the same ID. Hope that helps

better explain.

regards,

Tony

[bcooney]

Actually, you've confused me more.

Requisition>ReqLineItems by RequisitionID. Understood. Each LineItem has a unique ID and the foreign RequisitionID. How can they possibly all show the same LineItemID?

You can omit portal rows by using a relationship where the IDs that you want are stored in a global text field on the parent side of the relationship.

That being said, did you know that if you put "@@" (no quotes) on the layout in a portal row, FM will display serial numbers? Just a quick way to get line numbers.

[Shipbuilder]

Barbara,

Sorry for the delay. I've actually found and fixed the problem. The issue was in the relationship. The requisition table was also related to the PO table via

the auto generated requisition number. This would allow a purchaser to pull the data entered on the requisition form into the Purchase order form through a

drop down menu that relates to the auto generated requisition numbers. The relationship cannot allow the Purchase order table to create new records in the

requisition table or else the original line item serial numbers in the portal become redundant. I had arbitrarily allowed that to happen and after disassembling

the relationship and putting it back together again (one step at a time) I was able to find it.

Thanks for the tip on "@@". No I did not know that and it could be very helpful in the future.

Now I have to get on with setting up a checkbox on the Purchase Order side of the DB so the purchaser can omit lines if necessary.

Thanks for your help.

Tony

[bcooney]

How many Requisitions can a PO relate to? Do you want to give your users the ability to "shop" line items across several Requisitions when they create a PO?

[Shipbuilder]

Actually, the user doesn't need the ability to "shop" several Requisitions in this case, however, they need the ability to take one Requisition (which contains

as many as seven items on one Requisition) and split it out over several Purchase Orders (seven Requisition line items could end up equaling seven different

Purchase Orders).

Tony

[bcooney]

OK, so you share the LineItems table with two entities: Requisitions and POs. Available LineItems would be any record that does not have a _kF_PO_ID.

I would have a New PO button on the Requisition (and allow it to work if any of the line items do not have a POID). This button would capture the ReqID, create a new PO, populate the foreign PO::_kF_ReqID. On the PO form, I'd have two portals. The first is a portal of LineItems that relate to the _kF_ReqID (available items) and do not have any value in _kF_PO_ID (multi predicate relationship). I'd put an Add button on this portal to "move" this item into the PO Line Items portal (the second portal, related simply by PO_ID). "Add" simply sets the _kF_PO_ID.

[Shipbuilder]

Sounds like an idea to me. Could you provide an example of what you are talking about so I can get a better idea of how it would work?

Tony

[bcooney]

Here's an old demo that shows the technique using a Quote/Invoice.

QuoteInvoice.fp7.zip

[Shipbuilder]

Hi Barbara,

I took a good look at the example that you posted and believe that it will be suitable for implimentation into the project that I am working on currently.

However, I am unable to get it to work properly. I think that due to the flexibility that has been developed into my database that I may be getting confused

in the area of "uninvoiced" items (which in my case is "unpurchased" items). I am sending a copy of it to you privately because the database contains some

information that is private to my company. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Tony