FILEMAKER: Can’t Add Portal Row ( Calculated Child Key )

From Dwayne Wright - www.dwaynewright.com

As you likely know, there is a relationship setting that allows you to create child key records from a parent record on the fly. For the most part, this is used in a situation where you can add a new related record by adding information in one of the fields in the last empty portal row.

So when you think about it, that automatically created and linked related record must auto enter the correct information in the child key field for the relationship to be valid.

Although the setting may be in place, the auto create action can break for any number of reasons. The one I’m discussing here is based upon on what type of field you are using in the child table.

Once again, in the situation above, FileMaker enters data in a new related record and places a matching data string into the child key field? What if the field is a calculation field? You can’t type, paste, replace or use the set command on calculation fields can you?

So you can see why it would break.

Normally, you use calculation fields as key fields when you want to tie two or more fields together to build a complex relational key. This could be something like the order date and a sales rep id number. Then a sales rep access could be setup so they would only see their own related information on a particular date. A common term for this is portal filtering.

This isn’t as common as it used to be because as of FileMaker 7, we can have multiple predicate relationships. However, some developers are still using the older techniques and you may always run across a FileMaker solution converted from FileMaker 6 that still uses the calculation field for a child key technique.

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© 2007 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

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