Sun 12/6/11

We need to:-

1.  Make a copy of 3 files with no records [clone], and rename them 
to give us new files for the new production year.  e.g   copy 2010 
Receival as a clone and save it as, 2011 Receival.  The 3 files are 
RECEIVAL, PROCESSING and INVENTORY.

In "regular" FMP, the new copied file 2011 Receival  shows as 2010 
Receival in the Table name section of the fields window in 
File>Manage Database>Fields.  Is this a problem? The re-naming has 
not been effective here. We believe that FMP Advanced has this 
facility so we have ordered it.

2.   Create relationships between these 3 files to enable look-ups 
and avoid duplication of date entry.

3.   Create look-ups to previous years' Inventory files to obtain 
stock levels for the carry over of unsold stock, to be displayed. in 
the current year's inventory file.

Advise from the FMP list suggested organising the FMP files in the 
one folder to make it easier for FMP to look up related files. This 
required a filename change.  Previously, we had all the files 
relating to a particular production year in a discrete folder,  
Production10 for 2010 and so on.  To organise the renamed files in 
the one folder we renamed the files thus - 2010 Production.

Issues:

1.  We can create a relationship between Receival and Processing and 
look-up the materials used in Processing from  Receival.  No problems 
here.

2.   We can create a further relationship between Processing and 
Inventory in the same year and look-up relevant fields  No problems 
here either.

3.   When we attempt to create a relationship between the current 
year Inventory and a previous year's Inventory file, the look-up 
works fine, BUT  - if we then try and look-up to the current 
Processing file in the current Inventory file, it all goes pear 
shaped and only returns one field from the current Processing file. 
It is as if it will only access data from the most recently used file 
and not access data from previously created relationships and 
look-ups.

We are doing something wrong or missing a step.  We use a server with 
the FMP server version.  This impasse is most frustrating and time 
consuming.  We wondered if there are re-naming conventions we don't 
know about that may part of the problem.  Any assistance most 
appreciated.

Sat. 11/6/11 [previous post]
In making the jump from FMP 6 to FMP 11, there have been a few 
changes which folks on this list have helped with, thanks for the 
help, much appreciated.

With FMP 6, one could look up records in a number of different source 
files so long as the relationships were in place.

With FMP 11, I am finding that only one source file can be looked-up 
even though there are multiple source files with relationships 
established.  i.e the target file has relationships with 5 other 
source files using the same match field in each.  Each source file is 
for a different years activity but the field names are all the same. 
the match field is an ID field e.g.  2005 sales, match field 05XX, 
2006 sales, match field 06XX etc etc.

When the match field value for any of the source files is entered 
into the target file match field, the values for the looked-up fields 
established in setting up the look up, should be returned.  With FMP 
6, I could enter the match field of any of the source files in a 
relationship with the target file and have the record returned.  Is 
this a 1 to 1  or a 1 to many thing that I don't get?

TIA

Andy