I am new and to File maker.
I made this nice database that has all this information about
different jobs I have done, dates times places and such. Now I want
to make different layouts for the information. I now want to make one
where I only see information from a certain job. And than put in some
summaries to add the hours I spent on that job only. How is this
done?
Matt
On 2007-10-01 15:08:03 -0700, mattG
> I am new and to File maker.
>
> I made this nice database that has all this information about
> different jobs I have done, dates times places and such. Now I want
> to make different layouts for the information. I now want to make one
> where I only see information from a certain job. And than put in some
> summaries to add the hours I spent on that job only. How is this
> done?
>
> Matt
Sounds like an ideal opportunity to spend some quality time with the
application documentation or a third party book like:
Using Filemaker 9 (Special Edition)
Quick and dirty, use the online help to look up "View as Form" and
"Subsummary Report".
The reason I recommend this instead of directly answering the question
is that the form of your question indicates you need a basic grounding
in terms and concepts before you would be able to use the information.
--
Lynn Allen
--
www.semiotics.com
Member Filemaker Business Alliance
Long Beach, CA
In article <1191276483.718735.116060@n39g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
mattG
> I am new and to File maker.
Lesson #1: "FileMaker", with a capital F and M, and no space. ;o)
> I made this nice database that has all this information about
> different jobs I have done, dates times places and such. Now I want
> to make different layouts for the information. I now want to make one
> where I only see information from a certain job. And than put in some
> summaries to add the hours I spent on that job only. How is this
> done?
There is no simple answer to this since it depends on lots of factors:
how you've designed your "nice database" (how the fields are defined
and data stored / related), what you're doing with the information
(on-screen or printout), how you want to summarise the data, etc., etc.
For printed (or previewed) reports you can add various Summary parts to
a layout along with Summary fields. This requires finding the
appropriate records and correctly sorting them before printing /
previewing the report, otherwise you can get strange results or
"missing" summary sections. If you are wanting to show many related
records (the related dat itself rather than just summarising it), then
the report must be done from the related file / table because Portals
are not designed to be used in printouts.
Summary parts of a Layout are no good for on-screen use (the exception
of course is Preview mode). Instead you can define Relationships to
appropriately group the data together and then have Calculation fields
and Portals to display and summarise the data.
If it's a very simple database, then standard Calculation fields alone
might be all you need. For example, if each record is completely
self-contained with a StartDate and EndDate, then you can work out the
number of days for each individual record just by using a subtraction
calculation (ie. NumDays = EndDate - StartDate).
In some cases the summarising is best done from another file / table
which is separate from the data. This may require creating
Relationships and Calculation fields, or may also need to temporarily
import the data from other files / tables.
At the very simplest level, assuming you have one file / table
containing various jobs (with each job having one or more records that
each contain a "TimeSpent" field), then you can create a Summary field
to add up the TimeSpent fields for all records in the Found Set.
ie.
sum_TotalTimeSpent Summary
Total of TimeSpent
You can then create a Layout something like:
[JobID] [Date] [TimeSpent] hours
|Body
--------------------
Total Time Spent = [sum_TotalTimeSpent] hours
|Trailing Grand Summary
--------------------
Where [] denote fields.
Then you can Find the appropriate records you want to report on (eg.
records for job "JB15") and printing or Previewing the Layout would
give you a report along the lines of:
JB15 18 March, 2007 4 hours
JB15 21 March, 2007 3.5 hours
JB15 22 March, 2007 3 hours
Total Time Spent = 10.5 hours
Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)