User manual

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132 | Working with related tables and files
Use lookups to:
1 Copy data from a related table and keep it as copied, even when the related
data changes. For example, use a lookup to copy the price of an item at the
time of purchase into an Invoices table. Even if the price in the related table
changes, the price in the Invoices table stays the same.
FileMaker Pro can also access data stored in other FileMaker Pro files and
external ODBC data sources, which allows you to combine data stored in your
FileMaker
Pro file with data from these external sources. You can work with
data in SQL databases that share information through ODBC. You can also use
supplemental fields in FileMaker
Pro to perform calculation and summary
operations on data stored in ODBC data sources. For more information about
using FileMaker
Pro with external data sources, see Working with external
data sources” on page 170.
Note See Help for detailed, comprehensive information and step-by-step
procedures about using FileMaker Pro.
About relationships
A relationship is a powerful method for organizing your data. Using a
relationship, you can join data in one or more tables based on common field
values, different field values, or a comparison of values in two or more fields.
After you create a relationship, you can do either of the following to display
the data from the related table:
1 Design a relational database, which is one or more tables that, when used
together, contain all the data you need for your work. Each occurrence of
data is stored in only one table at a time, but can be accessed and displayed
from any related table. You can change any occurrence of your related data,
and the changes appear in all places where that related data is used.
1 Define a lookup to copy data from a related table into a field in the target
table. The copied data is now stored in two places, just as if it were copied
and pasted into a target field. Looked up data is current at the time it is
copied, but once copied it remains static unless it is re-looked up or the
lookup is triggered again.
φμπ10_υσερσ_γυιδε.βοοκ Παγε 132 Μονδαψ, Αυγυστ 25, 2008 3:59 ΠΜ