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Working with related tables and files
F
ILEMAKER PRO HELP 380
About multi-criteria relationships
In a multi-criteria relationship, you increase the number of match fields, which increases the criteria
that FileMaker
Pro evaluates before successfully joining related records. In a multi-criteria
relationship, FileMaker
Pro compares the values from each match field on each side of the
relationship in the order in which the fields appear. This is called an AND comparison; to match
successfully, every match field must find a corresponding value in the other table.
In this relationship, both TextFieldA and NumberFieldA are match fields to TableB. A record in
TableA with a TextFieldA value of Blue and a NumberFieldA value of 123 will only match those
records in TableB where both TextFieldB and NumberFieldB have values of Blue and 123,
respectively. If TextFieldA and TextFieldB have matching values, but NumberFieldA and
NumberFieldB do not, no related records are returned by the relationship.
Using a multi-criteria relationship
Use a multi-criteria relationship when you want to relate two tables based on more than one
common value, such as a customer ID and a date. For example, a database has three tables:
• Equipment, a static database that stores equipment rental inventory
• Customers, which stores customer names and addresses
• Catering Line Items, which stores a record of each equipment rental, including the
equipment ID, the customer ID, and the event date
The purpose of this database is to track equipment rentals and display all rentals by a selected
customer on a selected date.
Although the database uses three tables, the multi-criteria relationship is between the Customers
and Catering Line Items tables. These two tables have these fields:
Table Field name Comment
Customers Customer ID Number field, auto-enter serial number; one of
the match fields to the Catering Line Items
table
Event Date Date field; the other match field to the Catering
Line Items table
Catering Line Items Customer ID Number field; one of the match fields to the
Customers table
Event Date Date field; the other match field to the
Customers table
Equipment ID Number field