I have a list of freight in a table called loads_list.

In a portal, on a layout called Find Loads, I want to display loads
that meet Pickup and Dropoff location criteria. I'm trying to quickly
answer the following questions:

1 What loads are going from Colorado to Florida.

2 What loads are leaving California.

3 What loads are delivering in Kansas.


I've built a seperate table (load_lookup) with match fields (pic_state,
drop_state) in common with my loads_list table.

I've built a multicritera relationship between the two tables.

I've built the layout with the portal everything is almost beautiful.

The problem is that I don't seem to be able to use wild cards, which
makes it impossible answer questions 2 and 3 above. Punch in
California (CA) for pickup state and "*" for drop state and I get no
records. Everything works great if I use both variables (pickup state
and dropoff state)

So I'm either doing something wrong or I need to find a different way
to do this.

-JOE

Your not doing anything wrong, FileMaker doesn't support wild cards in
a relationship.
If you want to filter the portal by From & To locations you need a calc
field in the LOADS_LIST table which concatenates From, To, and From_To
all carriage return separated.
In the LOAD_LOOKUP table you keep your existing 2 fields and also add a
calc which evaluates to the From & the To.
You link the tables using the 2 calcs.

Both calcs need to be setup so that the From & the To can not be
interchanged otherwise when you select CA as a From state, the portal
will show deliveries From & To there.
I would suggest something like;
"From" & PickupState & "¶" &
"To" & DropState & "¶" &
PickupState & DropState

The calc in the LOADLOOKUP table would be something like;
Case (
IsEmpty ( DropState ), "From" & PickupState,
IsEmpty ( PickupState ), "To" & DropState,
PickupState & DropState )