Filemaker Pro Lesson

Creating a New Database

1. Choose File -> New Database. Click the "Create a New Empty File" radio button then click "OK".

2. Type Registrations in the "File Name" field. Click "Save".

There are six field types in FileMaker Pro:

• Number fields contain numeric values that you may perform calculations on.
• Date fields must contain a date value.
• Time fields contain time values.
• Container Fields are used to store objects such as graphics, sounds, and QuickTime movies.
• Calculation fields are used when you are performing calculations on fields within one record. You can combine constants, field results, logical operators (>,<, etc.) and functions into a formula and have the result of the formula automatically displayed in a calculation field.
• Summary fields are similar in use to calculation fields, in that they both perform automatic calculations, but there are two major differences. First, a calculation field performs calculations within one record, while a summary field performs calculations for a group of records. For example, a calculation field can be used to calculate an invoice total, but a summary field can be used to calculate the total of all invoices for a month. Second a summary field's calculations are limited to several types (Total, Average, Count, Minimum, Maximum, Standard Deviation, and Fraction of Total), while a calculation field can perform nearly unlimited types of calculations.
  
  • Global storage enables a field to contain the same value across all records in a database file. A global field can be a text, a number, a date, a time, or a container (picture, sound, or movie) field. The advantage of using global storage is that the value is actually only stored one time, even though it is displayed in all the database records.

You should try to plan the database fields ahead of time (as much as possible) so that you won't have to move, change, or re-organize fields extensively later. If you change a field type after data has been entered in the field, you may loose the field contents if the data entered can not be converted to the new field type.

1. The first fields you will create are the name fields. It is good practice to separate the first and last names of the registrants in case you would ever want to sort the database records by the registrants' last names. To define a field, simply type the name of the field in the field name box and select text from the drop-down list of field types. Then click "Create". Notice that our file name is displayed in the table selection list. In Filemaker Pro 7, related tables can be created within the same file. If related tables exist, you must select the appropriate table before defining a new field.

Create the text fields "Last Name", "First Name", "Address", "City", "State", and "Zip". You will make the "Zip" field a text field because you will not need to perform any calculations on it. All numeric sorting and searching can be done treating the zip code as text. In addition, if you use a number field for the "Zip" field instead of a text field, any zip code that begins with a zero will have the leading zero dropped. This applies to social security numbers as well.

2. Create a text field called "Telephone". Once again, the "Telephone" field will be a text field since you will not perform any calculations on the phone number. Also any hyphens or parentheses that you would use in a phone number are not permitted in a number field, because FileMaker Pro uses those symbols for calculating numeric information.

3. Now create the text fields "Registration #" (no calculations needed), "Past Participant", and "Equipment Rentals Needed".

4. Each participant will pay a registration fee. You may wish to create a report to add up all the registration fees to project income from the events so create a number field called "Registration Fee".

5. To qualify to participate in these events, a participant must raise pledges. You may wish to create a report to add up all of the pledges or calculate the average number of pledges per participant so create a number field called "Current Pledges".

Filemaker Pro gives you the ability to make changes to the database fields even after records are added. You can return to the Define Fields dialog box to change a field's name, type, or other attributes at any time.

6. Click on the "Telephone" field. In the Field Name box, type "Phone".

7. If you click the "create" button now a new field named "Phone" would be created. Instead, you only want to change the existing "Telephone" field name so, click the "Save" button instead.

Creating a Calculated Field:

8. Type Current Total in the "Field Name" field and select the "Calculation" radio button. Click "Create". The Specify Calculation dialog box appears.

9. All the fields you defined for the "Registrations" database appear in a list at the top-left of the dialog box. Scroll to the bottom of the list of fields in the "Current File" list, and double click on "Registration Fee" field. Double clicking a field adds it to the calculation.

10. You want to add the "Registration Fee" value to the "Current Pledges" value, so you will use the + symbol. Click the "+" button then double click the "Current Pledges" field in the "Current File" list to complete the formula. Select "Number" from the drop-down list for the type of calculation result then click "OK" and "Done".

If you want to create a field to display the participant's full name, you would create a calculation field to concatenate the First Name field and the Last Name Field with a space between them but use the "&" operator and set the results to be text. The "&" operator must be used between each group of characters you wish to add together so you would have to include an "&" between the First Name field and the first quote enclosing the space character (the space character must be enclosed in quotes because it is not a field name) and another "&" between the closing quote and the Last Name Field.

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Last updated: 12/28/2004