One of the most important things pieces of Act! for us was the histories
(past time) and calendar activities (future time) all linked to the various
contacts.

I've been reading about reating tables, choosing a key field, so on. What
is a down-and-dirty example, of how to create a history/calendar table and
link it to the main contacts table? I know this is probably a dumb
question, but I'm so new at this, been reading at midnight for many nights,
I just wanted to get a reality check on best practices via an example that
works the right way. I know that I need a portal, after establishing the
relationship, so that each contacts past and future activities can be
viewed, created, edited, and deleted via the portal.

thanks, and sorry for the neophitic rambling... just trying to get my
bearings after years with off-the-shelf fare.

What you want to do is create a field in your schedule items that holds
the contact's record ID (I assume you've got a unique serial number
assigned for each contact). Then, create a relationship from contacts to
the schedule, linking the record ID in contacts to the match field in
the schedule (or to do item, if you have that as well).

Depending on how you implement your schedule items, your interface could
look something like:
- Create the schedule record from the calendar
- From a schedule item layout, click a button that triggers a script to
lookup your contact.
- When you find the contact, click on a button in his/her record that
will copy the record ID (serial number or whatever) and paste it into
the schedule item's match field.
- In Contacts, create a portal that shows records from the
Schedule::Contacts relationship
- In schedule items, you could have a lookup or just show the contact
name that goes with the contact S/N you inserted.

There are other ways; this one I know works.

Abbott

In article <Xns96DF625207F2Bedmarmailcom (AT) 69 (DOT) 28.186.158>,
Ed Marmon <unlisted@.com.com> wrote:

thanks for your time and thoughts, i will tinker tonight with your
suggestion. the forums are great. goldmine, a crm which i also own (
rent!?) is apparently killing its community due to bad policies, as i
understand it. it's nice to see a seemingly vibrant FM community,
communites.