I'm having trouble with a client billing system from which I need to
generate statements. Perhaps I'm thinking about this in an obtuse manner...

Each job that belongs to a client is listed on a portal, and thanks to FM8,
it is nicely tabbed into three categories. For billing, more than one of
these portal records might need to be included in a periodic statement, and
I have a simple checkbox field entitled "Include in Statement."

The challenge that I cannot overcome is how to create a statement window
that displays only the portal records that have that Include field checked.
I have tried:

- A script that enters the portal rows looking for the Include checkbox, and
omitting records that does not contain it. Unfortunately, there is no way to
use Omit Record on a portal record; it omits the parent record.

- A second relationship which uses the "Include in Statement" field matched
to a global record set to Yes. That didn't work, either.

- A complex strategy through the use of related value list items, but I'm
not experienced enough to conjure this up on my own.


As this is a fairly routine task, I suspect that there is either a
conceptual block in my thinking or I'm on the right track with one of the
three efforts above, but I'm just not quite getting all the way there. Or
I'm going about this in an altogether wrong way.

Any input would be appreciated...



Rick A.
Pleasanton, CA

I assume the "Include In Statement" checkbox field is simply a number
which when set to 1 shows as checked. I also assume this number field
is cleared the next time around when you have to run the report again,

If that is the case then the easiest thing to do is to go to related
records in a new window using the same relationship as the portal.
This will show all the job records that were in the portal but in a
layout tied to job (not client).
Now enter Find mode and search for the records that have a 1 in the
"Include In Statement" field and constrain the found set, so that you
don't find records from a different client.

Your report needs to be printed from a layout displaying records from
the job table. You can still show related client data but the "Body"
of the report will be job records.