Too many fields for a portal. Use popup instead?

[ktalley]

Hello,

I need some advice on formatting a portal that has a lot of fields. I am enrolling students into a summer music camp (i.e., Event) and have to be able to keep different joined records for every year and keep separate records if the same student enrolls in multiple camps during the same year.

Students -< StudentEvents >- Events

Enrollment works fine, but the trouble is that I have a lot of data that needs to be in most StudentEvents records such as: Heath Form (just a yes/no box); First Payment, Type, Receipt; Second Payment, Type, Receipt; Final Payment, Type, Receipt; Roommate Preference; Roommate School; Dorm room; Additional Information; T-Shirt date ordered, etc.

Really too many fields to put on a horizontal row (with what I know now). Would it be easier for data entry (around 1000 new entries over the period of 45 days) if I use the Students Table for data entry of the Student's information (the information that won't change from camp to camp), then use a popup window whose layout would be based on the StudentEvents table to enter the relevant information in the join table for one particular event? Or is there a portal display trick I don't know about?

On my current Students Table layout I only need to view a few fields regularly from the StudentEvents table after that information is entered, so only the data entry part is where I can't figure out how to easily present the data.

Thanks for your assistance!

kt

[LaRetta]

"First Payment, Type, Receipt; Second Payment, Type, Receipt; Final Payment, Type, Receipt"

Hi kt,

The first thing is to be sure the structure is correct. The above should be another table called Payments (and you may have other fields which should be tables as well). You may also wish to present your structure for consideration; with the proper base, designing is much easier.

As for data entry, portals can be more than one row high so they can be presented with many fields (and labels) inside a row. Overall, it makes sense to me to begin on the Student layout because the User needs to find the person first anyway. Once on Student layout, User can verify the Student information, "Are you still at 124 W. 5th?". Portal can show all events already created for the Student which can be clicked to go to the details for that Student's event information.

For adding an event, use a dwindling value list (lists all events the Student qualifies for but has not yet registered) attached to a pop-up. Selecting an event here can create a new StudentEvents record and switch to that StudentEvent. On StudentEvents layout, you can use tabs to group the information logically; one tab for Payments which contains a portal of payments made, one tab for Roommates, tab for Purchases (t-shirts, books, videos) and so forth.

You can open new windows if you wish but they are not needed - layout switching works as well.

[ktalley]

Good point about the payments - don't know why I didn't see that before.

Thanks for the direction. I'll give it a try

kt

[LaRetta]

You can find example of dwindling value list here:

http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/51074-tough-one-excluding-value-list/page__p__266667#entry266667

... and if you need help with any of it, let us know. There are some great and knowledgeable people here to assist and there is also me. LOL.