Hi,

I have recently developed a solution for a client, and have encountered a strange problem. Pretty simple development, basically sales orientated, with a customers and invoices databases. Have set up a relationship between the two files which essentially allows users to create new invoices and enter a customer id (primary key field), which will then bring across relevant contact details (onto the relevant layout within invoices). Have a "Cash" customer within the customer database, and they have been roughly 1,000 invoices already generated on this contact, but now what seems to be happening is that whenever a new cash sale is to be created is takes an incredibly long time to bring across the details from customers to invoices. Customers with few invoices attached to them still peform quickly when new invoices are created, it only seems to be customers with large numbers of invoices connected to them. This is definitely not a network problem, as I now running the solution locally on my powerbook with absolutely no network reliance whatsoever. This is incredibly puzzling to me (and especially frustrating for my client), so any advice / suggestions / questions are welcomed.

Thanks,

Rohan

<[email protected]>

Really nothing new or unusual here. You are pointing up a case in the use of relationships were more isn't always better. The relationship itself isn't slow, the calculations based upon the relationship do take a finite time when you ask them to be performed. I'll bet you have a total of all the invoices on the screen you are viewing. To get this total, FM must retrieve from disk all the invoice records for that customer and add up all the totals. This just takes time.

Another VERY typical example is an inventory control system. It is easy in FM to have an Inventory file add up all the stock and draw transactions for a given inventory item and give you an accurate "on the fly" inventory total for that item. In large systems this isn't done for the reason you just encountered, speed. Instead a "pretty good total" is used, often updated as a "chron" job (a procedure scheduled on time) at night and used through the next day.

The immediate solution is to remove the total of all invoices from the screen you are using for the portal (I'm guessing again) of customer invoices.

-bd

Another thing that can really slow down portals, is sorting the related records.