Custom FileMaker Program

[TrevorTurnbow]

Anyone out there that has created a custom solution using Filemaker,  how did you go about using a pricing matrix to price by print colors and quantity for screen printing and stitch count and quantity for embroidery?  I'm looking into this for our shop but am stumped on how to calculate prices in an order based on several criteria.  Any guidance is much appreciated!

[Gilligan]

I don't know anything about filemaker (other than what it is) but this should be pretty straight forward, barely has to do with filemaker really.  Just look up tables and math functions.

I do this in excel with VLookup on our pricing sheet.

What type of shirt is it gives you the price (I have an override cell as well), marks that up by your percentage, then you add your print price (from the matrix... I use a simple first print price and additional colors cost).  I also have additional fees for flashing as well as "odd location" charges.

If you have a more specific question I can attempt to guess at what direction you need to be looking at to fix the problem.

[TrevorTurnbow]

Ya we've built basically a database in excel with index and match functions that pull prices into an order form so I understand the theory behind matrices and lookups.  It's very streamlined but we're growing and need something that actually records an order and maintains consistency for multiple users. 

I've played around with Filemaker but to my knowledge, it doesn't handle matrices very well and just requires some different thinking as far as organizing your tables and data.

[Gilligan]

Sorry, I only have BASIC experience with Access and MySQL... I would think it would be a simple table, no. of colors on one column and then something defining quantity on the others... might make more sense to have a 2nd table to store how those are defined then do the math there and just give the columns ID's.

But over all it should be able to say, SELECT (qty column) WHERE colors = to COLORS.  That should pull up your price out of the matrix right?

Sorry, honestly Databases are my WEAKEST... my brother is the guru there, I barely can keep my head wrapped around them... it's VERY frustrating to me that it just doesn't click for me.

[TrevorTurnbow]

That's a good thought.  I'll keep playing and see if I can figure out how the WHERE function translates over to Filemaker cuz that makes sense.  I appreciate the input. 

[Gilligan]

Glad I could help in some way.  I know sometimes you just need to talk things out to help you get your brain going in the right direction after staring at a problem for too long.

[redwoodtees]

Instead of a matrix with color counts in the y and print counts in the x, try setting up a table which has three columns: color count, print count  and price. Then write a query (formula) to select the correct price based on your current conditions. I only know SQL, not filemaker.. but it would be something like "SELECT lowest price WHERE color count = 2 AND print count <= 50 "

[TrevorTurnbow]

Ok.  That sounds like a good way to go about it.  I guess the only downfall is that you could have up to 100 or so rows in the table.  But if that makes the price calculations easier then it may be worth doing it that way.  Thanks for your reply. 

[BRGtshirts]

We've run FM for orders database since ~1994, but do all pricing through an Excel calculations sheet. Pricing's then manually entered in FM.. along with other job info. FM is nice, but finding a developer local has been a challenge for us. More of a niche program and I've met lots of old school developers who I'm not sure if they're up on latest versions. Too much $ to invest on a complete rebuild, but maybe some day.

[Rockers]

My wife and queen of everything office related did build or FM database without any know how 10 years ago. It has some flaws which will be addressed soon. We will have a friend of mine who works as programmer rebuild it from scratch.

[Larz]

Anyone out there that has created a custom solution using Filemaker,  how did you go about using a pricing matrix to price by print colors and quantity for screen printing and stitch count and quantity for embroidery?  I'm looking into this for our shop but am stumped on how to calculate prices in an order based on several criteria.  Any guidance is much appreciated!

Were you able to figure out how we did our Matrix from your trial of our software - PriceIt?

[Sbrem]

I used Filemaker 2.0 way back to make up order forms with different stock designs that also included labels, reports to the president and so on. It can probably be done, and if you were to call Filemaker and explain what you're trying to do, they would, for a considerable sum, make it for you. The considerable sum scared us off, but it is a good product...

Steve