I am using Filemaker Pro 5.5 with Windows. I have a large student database ("Students") on the server, and have created a separate file ("Penn") that contains only specific information needed from Students. I want to be able to "flag" the fields in Penn that get updated in Students in the future. Does anyone know an easy way to do this? Thanks!

Not sure what do you really want to do.

It's look like an trivial task.

Define Import scripts?

Set editable property to some fields?

Who knows.

Dj

You could make a calc field that would enter the current date anytime one of your student fields is updated. Then you can perform finds for a certain date or a date range to see which student's records have been updated lately.

I'm not sure which database you would put this calc on. Maybe a more experienced user could help out with that.

This calculation needs to be unstored to work.

Here is the calc:

If(Field1 or Field2 or Field3 or Field4, Status(Current Date), Status(Current Date))

This calc will tell you when any of these fields is updated. If you want to get more specific, you can make a calc field to hold a date for each individual field rather than lumping them all together. You also don't have to have it enter a date. You can have it enter anything. However, if you have it enter "X" or whatever that will stay there unless you remove it somehow. That could get a little confusing. Probably best to stick with a date so you know not only that it was updated, but when it was updated.

Too goostree, I was just passing through and saw your calc If(field...,stutus...,status...) statement and couldn't help asking myself what the test for the If statement is. I'm not a newbie but this is new to me. Greg.

To be quite honest, I have no idea how this works. I saw it on another thread and thought the person posting it didn't have a very good understanding of calcs. I was about to explain to the person that they needed a test for their If statement, so I tried it out in order to better prove my point when I shared my wisdom with them. Good thing I tested it first, because it worked like a charm. Don't know why, don't know how. I would be very interested if someone could explain it to me.

It's matter of how FM is validating calcs field. If you need an stored calc that will reflect changes of some status (like time, date and so on) or design (and also external)

function the only way is to include some real field as in above if statement. The reason is "the evalutation cost", ie it would be too costly to update all calc fileds that depend on these functions every time their value change.

Dj

I am doing this in a specification file where I need to track who changes what.

There is a plug-in from Waves in Motion called oAzium Events. It allows you to trigger a script when a field is changed. The script can do a set field to a history field and just keep adding into the history. Using the script you can put almost anything into the field. Date the field changed, what was entered, who entered it. The plugin is tricky to get to run but once you figure it out it works well.

Good Luck,

Wayne