VISUAL QUICKPRO GUIDE FileMaker Pro 7 Advanced FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Extending a Found Set

Once you have a found set, you might want to further refine it by finding records within the set or adding more records to the ones already found. In versions of FileMaker prior to version 6, you would use the Modify Last Find command, which would re-create the previous find criteria and allow you to modify them. That works just fine if your criteria are simple, but can create some serious issues if they are complex. For example, imagine that you created a found set of customers in the six New England states with billings over $500 per year. Now you want to find out how many in this set spent more than $1,000. A simple task, but tedious. Youd have to select Modify Last Find and change the sales amount for all six requests to $1,000. But in FileMaker 7, you have the ability to find records within the previous find (Constrain Found Set) or in addition to it (Extend Found Set) when you use the Modify Last Find command.

In this example, we have a database with a State field, and another, called Sales Summary, that displays the Sales Amount fields in all records. Well create a report of all New England customers who spent more than $500, and then use the Constrain Found Set command to create a separate report including just those customers who spent more than $1,000. As an alternative, well use Extend Found Set to add all the New York customers who spent more than $500 to the first found set.

To constrain a found set

1 .Choose View > Find Mode (Control+F/Command+F).

2 .Enter your criteria into as many fields as you need. In our example, weve entered MA in the State field and >500 in the Sales Summary field (Figure 5.1).

3 .Choose Requests > Duplicate Request (Control+D/Command+D; Figure 5.2).

4 .Replace the old criteria with a new entry. In our case, we enter ME in the state field.

5 .Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the rest of the criteria. In our example, we enter the other New England states (MA, VT, CT, NH, RI).

6 .Click the Find button to create the found set.

Our found set has all the customers in New England who have spent more than $500. You can print your report for these records. Now you can narrow the result for only those customers with a sales amount greater than $1,000.

7 .Choose View > Find Mode again. Enter >1000 in the Sales Summary field.

8 .Choose Requests > Constrain Found Set (Figure 5.3).

Our found set now contains only those customers in New England who have spent more than $1,000.

To extend a found set

1 .Repeat steps 16 above to create the New England report set.

2 .Choose View > Find Mode again. Enter >500 in the Sales Summary field and NY in the State field.

3 .Choose Requests > Extend Found Set.

The new found set will include all of the customers in New England and New York who have spent more than $500.