16 Sep 2017: this file (Excel Exports, v7d) fixes a bug where empty fields would cause values to appear in the wrong columns.
This is a follow up to last week’s part 6, with three refinements.
16 Sep 2017: this file (Excel Exports, v7d) fixes a bug where empty fields would cause values to appear in the wrong columns.
29 Mar 2017: this file (Excel Exports, v6d) fixes a formatting bug when currency values < 1000 are not preceded by a “$”. Explanation forthcoming in next week’s “part 7” article.
Recently I was asked to implement user-friendly Excel exports on a WAN-based solution, utilizing some of the techniques explored earlier in this series (part 1, part 1.1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 — all from five years ago). There was just one problem: while performance was great locally, and okay on a LAN, it was decidedly less-than-satisfactory across a WAN.
Well today we’re going to look at three demos showcasing a brilliant, outside-the-box technique I picked up from Beverly Voth, which is not only significantly faster on a WAN (4x or 5x faster), but also remedies some other shortcomings associated with my earlier approaches.
Demo files:
If you work with the separation model, or any other multi-file configuration where a layout in file A is based on a table in file B, you may have encountered the following situation: while FileMaker makes it easy to transfer a found set from file A to file B…
…there is no obvious mechanism to go the other direction. Stated in other words, you can easily transfer a found set from an interface (a.k.a. UI) file to a data file, but not vice-versa. Nor for that matter, is there an obvious way to transfer a found set from one UI file to another UI file. Continue reading “Transfer a Found Set to a UI File”
If you are responsible for helping business decision makers analyze data, you are probably familiar with questions like:
Today’s demo file, weekly sales comparison charts, v3, can help answer these questions. It consists of an Employee table with 20 records, a Sales table with approximately 40,000 records, seven chart types, and an option to chart weekly amounts either individually or cumulatively.
When we look at the weeks individually, it’s clear that Zola Buchanan’s sales figures are mixed so far this year, compared to 2011 and 2012. But what may not be immediately apparent is whether overall she’s doing better, the same, or worse.
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.
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”
Last week we looked at building a FileMaker 11 native chart based on data that has been parsed into a field-based array.
I happen to like field-based arrays, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute, but is a field-based array really necessary to generate the above chart? Continue reading “Array Charting, part 2”
In recent postings we’ve looked at…
While these three techniques may not appear to have much in common, all of them are used as building blocks in today’s demo, line-chart-from-field-array. Our data set is a table of web site visits, by week and by state, beginning in March 2006 and running through June 2011.
Wouldn’t it be nice to to use FileMaker 11’s built-in charting capabilities to produce a line chart showing weekly visits per year? Continue reading “Array Charting, part 1”
25 Feb 2012: Custom function syntax corrected to fix a minor bug.
There are various FileMaker functions that we can use to extract one or more characters from a text string (or any data string for that matter), provided we supply the proper numeric coordinates. For example,
Middle ( "Literature" ; 4 ; 3 ) = "era"
or
GetValue ( "Winter¶Spring¶Summer¶Fall" ; 3 ) = "Summer"
The key is knowing the numeric address of the data we wish to extract. In some cases we know it in advance (e.g., the first item of a return-delimited list); in other cases we calculate it on the fly. Continue reading “ValuePosition: The Function FileMaker Forgot”
