Filemaker Pro 9 (88)

Question 1

This set entered on 5-25-14
5.23.14.3

1. p 386. LOOKUPS. When you have a relationship between CUSTOMERS and JOBS, anytime you change a field in, say, the CUSTOMERS TABLE, the JOBS table reflects that change. You many not always want this to happen, so you use a:

Answer 1

LOOKUP FIELD

Question 2

2. What is a LOOKUP FIELD?

Answer 2

They let you take a piece of data from a table AND PROTECT IT FROM FUTURE UPDATES. Lookup Fields use the relationship as a source for a sort of COPY AND PASTE action.

Question 3

3. You have an INVOICES TABLE, attached to a JOB, attached to a CUSTOMER. When you mail the invoice to the customer, you could use the ADDRESS from the CUSTOMERS Table Occurrence to show the CUSTOMER’S MAILING ADDRESS. This is a bad idea because:

Answer 3

a. If you’re asked to mail the invoice to another address one time, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE the address in the CUSTOMER RECORD and THEN CHANGE IT BACK AFTER YOU’VE PRINTED THE INVOICE. But the database DOES NOT KEEP A RECORD OF THIS “ONE TIME” CHANGE
b. If you go back to the SPECIAL CASE invoice TWO YEARS LATER, it WILL LOOK LIKE you sent it to the same address as always.

Question 4

4. What is meant by the statement: DATA IS TRANSACTIONAL?

Answer 4

An INVOICE represents a SINGLE BUSINESS TRANSACTION at ONE point in the past. But the CUSTOMER RECORD DOES NOT REPRESENT a SINGLE TRANSACTION, it represents an ASSOCIATION with that CUSTOMER.

Question 5

5. So, when should you set TRANSACTIONAL DATA to change?

Answer 5

NEVER. TRANSACTIONAL DATA should NEVER CHANGE once the transaction IS COMPLETE.

Question 6

6. While RELATED FIELDS automatically SHOW NEW DATA, LOOKUPS use:

Answer 6

a SEMI AUTOMATIC approach

Question 7

7. Explain a LOOKUP’S SEMI AUTOMATIC APPROACH:

Answer 7

If you change a CUSTOMER’S RECORD, it WON’T affect the fields in the INVOICES record at all. But if you change the JOB ID on an iNVOICE record, the LOOKUP TRIGGERS again, and FileMaker FETCHES THE NEW CUSTOMER’S DATA.

Question 8

8. Additionally, you can CHANGE the data in a field formatted with AUTO ENTER LOOKUP at any time, should you wish to:

Answer 8

do a ONE TIME address change, for example.

Question 9

9. This SEMI AUTOMATIC approach to UPDATING DATA is just the right thing for TRANSACTIONAL DATA like Address Fields on INVOICES:

Answer 9

When you CHANGE THE TRANSACTION RECORD, its fields update appropriately, but when you change SOURCE RECORDS (The address fields in your customer records), FileMaker LEAVES THE TRANSACTION ALONE.