Inventory Portal and non Inventory Portal on same Invoice

[filemakermaniac]

Hello everybody,

 

I am curently setting up a database for a little vet center.

But I am now stumbling on several points.

My main current problem would be the following:

 

I have set up a portal on the receipt for Inventory based products (drugs, pet stuff...) but now I need another portal for non inventory based items (vet fee, pet hairdressing, ...).  My main problem is that they are uneven, some times I will have many inventory based products and few non-inventory products, and some times all the opposite.

 

So my big question is:

 

How can I Script a button who might extend my number of total portal rows, while changing the location of the portal below. (so they don't overlap)

I have a default number of portal rows of "4" but sometimes I might need "10" or "20" if I sum Inventory and Non inventory  (about the maximum size for A4 paper )

 

I hope I have been clear enough and that somebody might come in help.

 

Kind regards,

filemakermaniac

 

 

[B.Fehr]

just a short answer, hope it is of any help:

I'ld suggest to avoid Portal-Rows if possible since chances are low to get this even and you'll see less trouble in print layouts with list-view.

 

Therefor, header would be the usual adress-items, data's would be gathered by a dedicated relation.

You can apply some sort-orders similar to yours portal-row order.

With sort-function, you can apply sub summaries at the end of each data-block.

Use the footer area for total summary

 

good luck

 

sorry, that's all I can offer for my spare 5 minutes for today :-)

[Lee Smith]

Hi File, and welcome to our forum,

 

I moved your topic from "Articles, Tips, Techniques & Solutions" to "Managing Scripts".

 

 

Because, The Article, tips, Techniques & Solutions topic is intended for our members to post how to do things, not for the posting of question that ask how to do something.

 

The Forum has numerous other topic areas for this purpose. Please take the time to read the descriptions that accompany each topic to see what type of question are to be posted in them.

If you have any questions about this action, please contact me through a private message.

Lee 

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lee Smith
mod explanation

[eos]

I don't know the structure of your solution – e.g. Where do you put those items? Are they based on a products database? etc. – so any suggestions are merely broad pointers. 

 

1. You cannot dynamically change the size of a portal; there are some tricks to simulate this, but IMO they're not worth the trouble.

 

2. A better approach – not only for your interface, but also structurally – would be to not separate your non-inventory and inventory products, but think of them as products & services (or more abstract: stuff you receive and want to put on a receipt) and deal with them in one table and portal; use categories to differentiate between them and handle them according to category.

 

3. Portals are an interface tool; if you want to print a receipt, it is actually better to create a dedicated print layout based on the table (well, TO actually …) the portal points at. Then you can go from your main layout to the related records (i.e. items) of the receipt and e.g. summarize them by inventory/non-inventory with their own sub-totals, a grand total etc.

 

If you need more info, just ask.

[pixi]

you can not "extend my number of total portal rows" via a script. a portal is an interface/layout element.

 

to handle your task by using 2. and 3. from eos above or create aseparate line item table and set the unique id of the items you want to add to the invoice, pull the data fromt he original table via a relationship and sort them by e.g. source or type.

 

hth

pixi