Hi

I have just bought CC Calendar full edition which seems to give me the solution I was looking for.

I have a 'Tasks' DB as part of a Contact Management solution, and want to be able to show the tasks in a schedule using daily, weekly and monthly views.† All looking good so far.

I have tried to follow the instructions for implementing CC Calendar into my solution, but without much success.† I am not a very experienced FM user, but can follow instructions.†

The quality of your instructions is very†poor.† Where are the easy to follow field descriptions? Or script descriptions?† Why don't you annotate your fields and scripts.† I use Quick Tool Kit to develop most of my DB's - you should take a look at this as the quality of the instructions is excellent.

When a customer buys something, they don't expect to have to spend hours deciphering everything so they can use it - which I have had to do, and I still can't get it to work properly.

Perhaps you might be able to suggest some assistance?

Stuart

Dear Stuart,

I'm sorry that the calendar isn't living up to your expectations. They can be kind of complicated and while we've tried to make ours as compartmentalized as possible, we obviously have a ways to go.

So, I'm not sure what suggestions I can make without seeing where you're at. If you'd be willing to send me the files, along with a description of what you're trying to accomplish (what you'd like to see where), I imagine we can hep you make some headway.

Best,

John

Hi John

Thanks for the prompt reply - I appreciate it.

The big problem I am having is that I cannot get the Calendar to work!† I already had a Tasks DB which I tried to convert so it did what your Appointments DB does, such as setting up the fields, scripts and relationships as your FAQ sheet suggests.† However it still will not show any meetings (or tasks) in CCCalendar.† Obviously I have got something wrong. (I assume that even existing tasks which have a date should show up?)

The big problem is that as a fairly inexperienced, and self taught, Filemaker developer, I am not able to problem solve as quickly as I would like.† Because you don't provide any clear explanation of what field does what, or how one DB is related to another, it is very difficult to work out; as you say this is quite a complicated program.† Obviously users will want to incorporate your system in with their own, and that may involve field name changes etc.

Therefore, could I suggest that you provide a clear, comprehensive breakdown of what the most important fields/scripts/relationships do, so that users like me can very easily relate to them.† Obviously you don't have to go in to all of the wizardry that makes the Calendar work - just assume that someone like me wants to patch in CC Calendar to their own solution, and guide them through it in an idiot proof way!† I'm sure word would get around and you might even sell more units!!

I have spent the weekend trying to fathom what is wrong, and will continue until I get the damn thing to work - in the meantime can you give me a bit of a breakdown as to which are the most important areas that I am probably doing wrong?

Regards

Stuart

Hello Stuart,

You're correct in thinking that, if you do everything right, existing tasks would show up. Bellow I'll suggest a couple of the troubleshooting strategies I use when hooking CC Calendar up to another system.

Hopefully that will get you going. If not, I'd like to restate my suggestion that you simply send me the files. I'm sure that I'd be able to let you know what went wrong, and correct the problem.

That said, here goes...

1. Assuming that you want to swap out our Appointments file for your existing Tasks file. Lets take one relationship and see how this works. First, create a test task in your database. Make this task for today (3/8/2004). Assign the appointment to a person with the initials XX. If you don't already have an initials field in your tasks database, create one.

2. Still in your tasks database, find the calculation field you created to match the ApptCalendarKeyCalc field in our appointments file. Place this field on some layout in your Tasks database and look at its contents in browse mode for the record we created in 1. The field should look like this:

3/8/2004
3/8/2004
3/8/2004 XX
3/8/2004 XX

3. If the month and day are flipped because of your system formats, that is OK. We'll be comparing this to the version of this key in CCCalendar.fp5- all that is important is that the fields match. Note that there are several values here separated by carriage returns. FileMaker treats each of these as possible relationship matches (this is good). So that we can show this record in the calendar if our calendar key is 3/8/2004 or 3/8/2004 XX.

4. Check to make sure your version of ApptCalendarKeyCalc in tasks is set to return text, NOT a number. This is a common mistake.

5. Further troubleshooting your calc, enter browse mode and add a carriage return to the initials field, and then a second pair of initials : YY. So that the initials field now looks like:

XX
YY

6. Your calc should now display:

3/8/2004
3/8/2004
3/8/2004 XX
3/8/2004 YY
3/8/2004 XX
3/8/2004 YY

7. Now we're ready to look at CCCalendar.fp5. Go to the daily view and select 3/8/2004. Clear the initials field. You should see your appointment. If you only see a white row and a trash can that means you're seeing the record, just not the right fields from the record. (If that is the case you'd go into layout mode and select each field in the portal row, choosing the appropriate field from your file.)

8. Assuming no appointment shows up, go into layout mode and place the following field on the daily layout somewhere outside the portals: LinkCalcDateEmployeeInitialsCalc

9. In browse mode, if your initials filter is empty, this should look like this:

3/8/2004

10. The key here is to mare sure that the contents of this field matches the contents of *at least one row* of the field ApptCalendarKeyCalc in your tasks file. Check them carefully. Put your cursor in each field and make sure that the trailing space behind the date is there in both fields. If only one of your fields is formatted 8/3 instead of 3/8, check that the opening scripts in the calendar AND your task file have Set Use System Formats ON as their first step. (In CCCalendar.fp5, this script is called ï System Open.)

11. Once at least one row matches we know the calcs are good. Now we just need to make sure you've properly pointed the relationships in CCCalendar.fp5 to your file. Note; you do NOT want to create new relationships to your file- to do so is to attempt to rebuild the calendar. You want to modify what we have already built by pointing it at your file. (Now you may wish to create new relationships for other purposes, but to get things to show up in the calendar you want to use the ones already here.)

12. So, in daily view, take a look at the appointments portal in layout mode. The relationship at the bottom of the portal should read: ApptsbyLinkCalcDateEmpInittoApptCalendarKeyCalc

Each field shown in the portal should be from the same relationship. (Note that we don't recommend renaming the relationships- all the documentation and the posts on our support forum use these names. Renaming them means you'll have a harder time with upgrades and support.)

13. Once you're sure the portal and all its fields are using that relationship, lets make sure the relationship itself is correct. Double click on the appointments portal in layout mode, enter the "show records from" popup and select define relationships. This will let you edit the ApptsbyLinkCalcDateEmpInittoApptCalendarKeyCalc relationship. Check the following:

a. The related file on the right side is your tasks file (you should only have 1 copy of this file on your machine- if you don't, you may be pointing to another copy).

b. The left side field should be LinkCalcDateEmployeeInitialsCalc, the right side should be your version of ApptCalendarKeyCalc. Don't worry about the sort order for now; that doesn't affect things showing up or not.

14. At this point you should have discovered why the portal was not displaying your tasks. If the problem was due to a field definition in your task file, or to the relationship pointing at the wrong field in your task file. You are probably OK to continue working with the calendar. If the problem is that you used a different relationship or created your own, the scripts used to create and delete records may be broken as well and you should probably start over with a new copy of CCCalendar and try hooking your files up again.

15. Once your tasks are showing up you'll want to edit the file CalendarUtility.fp5 so that you can create and edit tasks from within the calendar. Read through these 4 scripts in CalendarUtility.fp5:

ï Create New Appt
Send Data to Appt
Get Data from Appt
ï Show Appt List

16. You'll want to point the relationship involved at your tasks file: ApptsByPopupLinkCurrIDXGlobToPrimeIDX points to the unique serial number in your tasks file. You also want to make sure the Send and Get scripts point through tis relationship to the correct fields; you can see that each script line moves a piece of data from the Utility to your Tasks file and back. Edit each line to make sure that, for instance, your sending date to date, initials to initials, etc.

I hope this troubleshooting has helped. Again, please feel free to send me the files if you're stuck.

Best,

John