Figuring Out Filtered Relationships

Sadly, this article won’t help you with your personal relationships.  Instead, Michael Rocharde tackles filtered relationships in FileMaker and does so in a major way:  cascading relationships where the user is presented with a list of filtered selections at each step in the process, making it easier to find and select the record they need:

There are many occasions when you will want to use a relationship to isolate a set of records and this is, of course, very simple, requiring nothing more than a Go to Related Record (GTRR) script step.  But there are also many occasions when you can use a relationship to derive a value list which, in turn, can then be used to derive another value list with the option to GTRR to the related records.  If this is confusing, think of it as a series of waterfalls, each falling into a pond which then flows into a smaller waterfall until you get the bottom where you have a very small pond indeed.

This analogy is actually very apt because the flow of water in the 1st waterfall is so strong that it is impossible to isolate the water you are looking for; it is easier in the 2nd waterfall, but still very difficult but by the time you get to the last pool, only the water that you were looking for is there.

This technique depends upon FileMaker’s ability to show a list based upon a relationship, something that many budding developers have trouble understanding.  It’s handled well in this example, and you can request the sample file, as well.

Finally, you get a video from Michael, as well.

Filtered Relationships | Everything FileMaker by Michael Rocharde.

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