Two tables accessing same data

[jcoffey]

I have an Invoices table with relationships to Contacts, Objects, Repairs, and Materials. Thanks to those at "the cafe", it works! Now I would like to set up an Estimates table with relationships to those same tables. I have set up relationships directly with those tables, and I have set up relationships with occurances of those tables. Neither way seem to work the way I invision. When using the same TO's that Invoices uses, I have found that when I create a record in Estimates, a record is created in Invoices, I presume because I have created an entity in Objects. Deleting the Estimate doesn't (and shouldn't) delete the Object record but instead it strips it of its relationship to the entity in Contacts which I don't want it to. When I set up the relationship using new table occurances but set up exactly as in Invoices, the objects in Estimates will not associate with the client who owns them. I don't know how to establish the relationships correctly. One of my solutions is posted below, the one with multiple TO's.

 

John Coffey

[LingoJango]

Sorry, John, can't download your stuff but all I can suggest is that you script object and contact creation instead of using relationships that enable records to be created. (Hint: a field can be turned into a button that runs a script.) Now that you've learned to use variables in a script, the sky's the limit. smiley-smile

 

My other suggestion is that you think interface first. Go back to your original thread - remember the questions about what the data entry sequence would be? Reconsider that now in the light of the need for estimates.

 

I assume you have a Line Items table of some sort. I would use the same line items table for quotes and invoices, with two foreign key fields (one for quotes and one for invoices). That'll make it easy to script the generation of an invoice from a quote.