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FileMaker Pro 9: Advanced Tutorials

Recursive Phone Filter / Multi-User Preferences pt. 3




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Now that we've added all the infrastructure to accommodate a multi user preference system all we need to do is go into the existing scripts and calculations and layouts and modify what they reference. But before we do that, let's take a look. You'll see down here in the lower left hand corner we have the word Admin. And if we go to the second record we have User 1. This is just something to tell us, for us, visually what preferences we're on. You don't really need to add that into your real version. All I did was come down here and add a Merge field for Account name so I can tell what record I'm on. That's all that is about. So now what we need to do is we'll start off with the menu button. We need to make sure when we click this and go to Preferences that we go to the right record, not just the right layout. So we'll go into ScriptMaker and we'll come down to our menu button. There it is, and here's what we have. We have If it equals Preferences go to Layout. What we need to replace this with is a Go to Related Record, because remember whether we're on Customers or Invoices or Products, or anywhere that's related to Customers it can go to Customers and then from Customers all the way to our Accounts and display the correct related record. So we'll specify this. We want to choose to go to Accounts and we want to choose to show Preferences. We'll also show Only Related Records, just so that we have a found set of ones the person doesn't accidentally stray onto another record. So we'll click OKay. We don't need this Go to Layout anymore, and that's it. We'll save that. And now we're ready to go ahead and work on our open script. Let's work on that. We'll edit that. And what we need to change is this right here. We need to go to the correct layout, so we need to modify this layout named by calculation. So what we need to do is say: Use the startup layout field from accounts. So we're going to replace this here. There it is. And remember, no matter where we are on open it's going to be able to see to customers and then see to our accounts and get the right value to place in here, Add form onto it and it'll work just like the Global Field worked. So we'll close that and save that. Let's move on to our Print Invoice. Okay. There's Invoices Print. And we need to change these References. We'll double-click on this one. Change it to Accounts and then all we have to do is choose our logo. There we go. Simple. And we need to change all these references, so we'll insert a Merge Field, and we're at Accounts and we'll choose Company, hit return, insert again, choose Address, return, one more Merge Field, and we'll put in the Phone Field. So actually it'll all work great. We'll see how it works in a minute. We have one more thing to change, which is our Category Field. Actually two more things. So we have our Category Field inside of Customers; we'll go find that field, there it is. We will go ahead and go into Options, go to the Auto Enter, take a look at this and we just need to change this reference: Accounts, and we'll come down to the Category field, there it is, simple as that. And then we have our Phone Fields, two of them. We need to change these, and we need to change this field right here. Change it to Accounts, and make sure we get Phone Format. There we go. click OKay. Do the same thing for Phone Shipping, go to Accounts; same exact thing. And there's Phone Format. Perfect. So now we should have everything set up perfectly and let's go back to Accounts and take a look at where we're at. There we go. Accounts Preferences. We'll go back to Browse Mode and you can see we have some settings for each one. Here's User 1, it has the second setting here, has go to Customers as a Startup, insert Government, and it has a Company of Productive Computing, a different address, same photo and logo, but I didn't want to put any, accidentally put anybody's information up here, and then you'll see on Admin here, we have slightly different choices. So now we can test it. All we have to do is log in as each person. So, we're logged in as Admin right now, let's go ahead and test it. So we'll go into our Customers Form and we'll enter in the phone number, click out of that; looks like it's formatting it correctly. We can create a new record, so we'll do that. And you'll notice it gives us Commercial, that's good. Okay. That's perfect, we like that. And then we have some other settings. Let's go ahead and remind ourselves about them. We have our Startup Layout, which we have to close and open the file, and then this information. Let's check to make sure that our Invoice Printing is correct right now. Go to Preview Mode, okay, and it looks like that's correct and that's correct. So it's the correct address and correct phone number. It looks pretty good. So now we can go back to Browse Mode and really all we have to do is check our Open Script. So we'll close it, open it again, Admin, 1, 2, 3, 4, there we go, and we're on the Invoices Layout, and also realize that on the open script that this overrode what we did. So really, we'd be best testing this by using the User 1 password, so let's try that. So User 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, so we should end up on the Customers Layout, and we are! That's great. And we can try entering a new record, so let's do a new customer, and unfortunately we don't have Privileges here, so we'll just have to trust that this works, we just don't have the ability to do that and we can go ahead and try to modify it, but ah, well, we could try this one. Let's try our phone number. And we should get a different format here. And it looks like it does, so that's great. So most of the things are working. I know that it works. You'll have to test it out yourself to be sure, but everything should be specific to that particular user and their records and accounts. In fact what we should really do is test out going into our Preferences. Let's try it and see what happens; we should get to User 1 Preferences. User 1. Good. We close it and open it up again, we'll do Admin this time, 1, 2, 3, 4, I'll then hit Preferences and look at that. We're on Admin. So everything looks to work just great.

Tutorial Information

Course: FileMaker Pro 9: Advanced
Author: John Mark Osborne
SKU: 33824
ISBN: 1-934743-32-1
Release Date: 2007-11-21
Duration: 10 hrs / 115 lessons
Work Files: Yes
Captions: For Online University members only
Compatibility: Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux
QuickTime 7, Flash 8

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