possibly a dumb question..

[sharlynora]

Hi all,

 

this is very very possibly a dumb question. but i have hit a wall...

 

I have a database that i have created (my very first one).

I have the following related tables:

Inventory (of artworks)

Artist Information

Buyer Information

 

When i am looking at the table of artist information, I would also like to see all of the artworks by this particular artist. So I created a portal. I selected the specific fields i would like to be able to view in the portal. And it works.. except that it only shows one artwork in the portal.

 

did i skip a step somewhere? was there something i was supposed to set up so that it will show ALL of the artworks by the same artist?

 

in the inventory table, each piece of artwork is treated as its own piece - has its own inventory ID and is seperate.

 

Thanks so much for the help!

-Shar

[David Head]

Not a dumb question. More likely a reasonable question for a newbie.

 

How is the relationship between Artist and inventory defined? I would assume that you have used:

 

Artist::ArtistID = Inventory::ArtistID

 

If that is so, a portal based on that relationship on an Artist based layout will display all related Inventory.

 

If not, one thing to check is the position of the fields in the portal. All fields need to be completely contained in the first row of the portal. If not, onyl the first related record will display (as if you have no portal at all).

 

Last thing to check - there ARE actually multiple related records to be displayed for the artist record you are looking at?

 

Hope this helps.

[sharlynora]

Thank you so much! I re-checked my relationship and I had made the two tables linked by artist ID and Inventory ID which was limiting what artwork was being displayed in the portal. Once i deleted the inventory ID off of the artist page, all artworks were displayed in my portal just the way I wanted!

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question, I really appreciate the help!

-Shar

[sharlynora]

another quick question...

is there anything that limits me from having a portal on the Purchased Inventory table occurance that holds information from the Customer Information Table, as well as a portal on the Customer Information table from the Purchased Inventory?

 

I need to be able to see the customer's address and info when I am looking at the artwork that was purchased. I need to be able to view a list of artworks bought by a particular customer when I am looking at that customer's information...

 

I got the portal to work that holds the customer's info on the Purchased Inventory Table, but the portal on the Customer Information table is not working...

 

again thanks for your help!

[David Head]

So the Purchase Inventory table will have a field for CustomerID.

You will have set up a relationship between the Customer Information table and the Purchase Inventory table using CustomerID:

 

Customer Information ----CustomerID----

 

This means that each customer can have many purchased items but each purchased item is linked to one customer only (or none if it has not been bought).

 

Since there is a maximum of one customer, you don't need a portal on the Purchase Inventory layout - just place the related custtomer fields there. But limit access to them so that the user cannot edit the customer information (either use merge fields or disallow entry in Browse mode - a setting in Field Behaviour).

 

On the Customer Information layout, simply create a portal based on the above relationship and it will display related Purchase Inventory records.