Hey everyone. Hope you can help me out with this. I have a simple
filemaker database set up with a text field named 'year'. In this field
I have written in the year that each member has paid their dues. For
example person A might have '2004, 2005' and person B might have
'2005, 2006'.

Now when I do a search in the 'year' field for '2006' ill get a list
with person B and that list will include in the field '2005' also. So
first off is having a text field with multiple years the right way to
go? And second, if I keep that is there anyway to just list the year
2006 after I search rather then all the years that the person has been
a member.

Hope this is not too confusing. Thanks for all the help!

-SeePlanet

In article <1164420929.177068.212390 (AT) j72g2000cwa (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
dkshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

It's not really possible to comment on whether or not keeping the years
in one Text field is a good idea. It all depends on what things you
want to be able do with the database.

If you don't need the historical data you could simply type over the
existing date when they renew their membership each year.


As long as you always type the years in the correct order, you can
obtain the last year they were a member by using a new Calculation
field that pulls out the very last "word" from the Year field.
eg.
NewestYear {Calculation, Text Result}
= RightWords(Year, 1)

For Person A this field will display as "2005" while Person B will be
displayed as "2006".


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

So the question is, if you do a search for 2006, and you get 2005 also,
is this not what you expected? Do you not want both values? If not, why
would you put both in the same field?

What is it you're trying to do?

If all you want is to know how lately the person has been a member, then
don't bother with the multiple values, just keep the latest year in that
field. IF you nee to know how long a person has been a member, then add
a DateJoined field. However, that would not fully accommodate a member
who had a break in membership, should you want to track that information.

If you want more sophisticated information, like finding everyone who
was a member in 2006 but not showing any other year, then you want a
separate table with a separate record entry for each year the person was
a member.

Matt

In article <1164420929.177068.212390 (AT) j72g2000cwa (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
dkshaw (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote: