I'm working on a Layout for Events, with is connected to a Table of Contacts via a Join Table called Invitations.

EVENTS < INVITATIONS > CONTACTS

So, I have a portal displaying Attendance Records, in which I display some fields from Contacts (Full Name, Organization) and some fields from Invitations (Status, Inviter).

Q1) When I attempt to Sort the records in the portal, I can choose only from fields in the Invitations table. Is there no way that I can sort the records in the portal by Organization, or by Name? It seems odd that I can't "get at" these sorting options, since the data is displayed right there in the portal... What am I missing?

Q2) On a related note, I'm needing to come up with some Filtering options for the invitation records in this portal, so that, for instance, it might display only invitations whose 'Status' is "Accepted" -- or who were invited by "Lucy" -- or who work at "MGM".

I'm thinking I could create a Global field for each of the 3 fields we might want to filter on and then write an exhaustive Calculation that takes into account the various possible states of the three Globals and filter the portal accordingly. Is this a reasonable approach?

I've done some hunting around, and the nearest thing I've bumped into is here:

http://fmforums.com/...ing-techniques/

. . . but its a few years old, and it only refers to this "Tabs" approach, it doesn't explain it?

Thanks for any pointers

I only have time to address the sorting issue. Two ways:

1. temporarily change the context of the portal to Contacts. Add the fields that you wish to sort to the order. Change context back to Invitations.

2. Use unstored calcs in Invitations to "bring up" the contact fields you need to sort by.

If you have many ways that you need to filter, I'd suggest a FIND in Invitations rather than a filtered portal. Much less limiting for the user.

Q2) On a related note, I'm needing to come up with some Filtering options for the invitation records in this portal, so that, for instance, it might display only invitations whose 'Status' is "Accepted" -- or who were invited by "Lucy" -- or who work at "MGM".

I'm thinking I could create a Global field for each of the 3 fields we might want to filter on and then write an exhaustive Calculation that takes into account the various possible states of the three Globals and filter the portal accordingly. Is this a reasonable approach?

I believe it is. I don't think such calculation needs to be very complex - after all, each global has only 2 possible states (empty or not) and you are allowed to use "or" in the calculation.

Thanks on both counts -- doing a find-oriented layout in Invitations makes good sense, of course!

Ah -- nice to have validation on the Filtering idea as well! A wealth of options. Thanks for your time.