Lynne,
We use Filemaker for everything around here; collections, archives,
membership, rental program, school tours, etc.  I would be happy to give you
some ideas.

One benefit of Filemaker is its relational capabilities.  The actual dues
payments should be kept in a separate file the is related to the main file.
This way when you someone makes a payment, it creates a payment record for
them.  In their main record, you create a window to look at all related
payment files for that member.  That way, you always have a history for this
kind of info.

Some times I will create a quick calculated field.  If you always know that
you have an "04" at the end of the field, than you can make a caculated
field that just shows the last two numbers of the field, and you can search
on that.

If you are using a field that has repetitions, this is much harder to deal
with.  I don't ever use this feature, as it is much better to use the
related file feature.

David Lynx
Yakima Valley Museum
(509)248-0747

>   Our tiny museum uses Filemaker Pro for membership and collections
> tracking. I have worked with a few databases for some time and I heard that
> this program was easy to use. However, while I like the program, Filemaker
> Pro is still a learning experience every time I go into it. For that reason,
> I would like to ask a quick question of any list members who are more
> familiar with it than I am.
>   Our membership records have a last field into which I put every year in
> which I receive membership dues from someone. Our society president would
> like to know what new members we have this year, so I need to pull only
> those records that have *only* 04 in that last field. I know how to pull all
> records that have an 04 in that field, but I need to pull only records that
> have nothing else except 04 there. Can anyone tell me what search command I
> need for that?
>   Many thanks.
> Lynne 

-- 
Yakima Valley Museum
yakimavalleymuseum.org

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