Tag: Translation Table

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 9 or later

User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 3

Kevin Frank

27 Mar 2017: see User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 6 for an updated approach.

So far in this series we’ve been looking at exporting data to Excel from a single table (Contacts). Today we’re going to extend the technique to encompass a second related table, Donations, and without too much trouble we can leverage existing work from earlier entries in this series (part 1, part 1.1 and part 2).

To avoid unnecessary repetition, this article assumes familiarity with the aforementioned predecessors, and you can follow along in today’s accompanying demo file, excel exports, part 3, if you are so inclined.

Continue reading “User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 3” →

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 9 or later

User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 2

Kevin Frank

27 Mar 2017: see User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 6 for an updated approach.

[Note: To avoid a huge amount of redundant repetition, this article assumes that you are familiar with part 1 and part 1.1 in this series.]

Today we’re going to take a look at streamlining the approach introduced in part 1 by reducing clutter on the Relationships Graph, going from this…

…to this, with no loss in functionality.

…and you can follow along in today’s demo file, excel exports, part 2, if you are so inclined. Continue reading “User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 2” →

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 9 or later

User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 1.1

Kevin Frank

Bruce Robertson emailed me off list with an improved version of my demo from part 1, excel exports, part 1.1, which I am sharing with his permission. The improvements are…

a) live preview fields showing the data to be exported.

b) an “Eval Error Tester” script to make sure the output code in the alias table is well-formed.

Thank you Bruce for making this available.

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 9 or later

User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 1

Kevin Frank

27 Mar 2017: see User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 6 for an updated approach.

Many end users appreciate FileMaker’s ability to export a found set of records in Excel format — it’s fast, straight-forward and empowering. One request that I have received from clients multiple times over the years is: make the exported field names in the top row of the spreadsheet “human-friendly”…

For example, instead of this:

…perhaps they would rather see this:

Another request has been to allow data from multiple source fields to be combined into single export columns, as per columns A and C here:

And a third request has been to provide an interface so that users can pick and choose fields to export, including (where appropriate) related fields, without having to navigate the complexity of the native FileMaker export dialog. Continue reading “User-Friendly Excel Exports, part 1” →