Why can't I move these formula fields?

Mel,

 

It works in the browser version also. I just didn't expand the Formula field enough to make the other fields stack...

 

 

The choices are pretty much None, Left or Right.

Cheers Sean - I can use that !!

Jess - Glad you are sticking with it. After some 2 + years of working with Ninox- I am still learning, But I managed to bring forward my 4 year plan to run most of my business operation in the cloud. Staff now work from home (they are happy!), moved the factory to a smaller unit with less offices. Saved a shed load of money and shared it with staff! (staff even happier). That's a win in my book! and all before Covid broke

As my old system was no longer fit for purpose (Dataease 8). After several trials of other software - I set about creating my new system initially in both in MS Access (already had this) and Ninox - on the basis that both would need scripting to allow me to do the tasks that I wanted (ie VB in Access and JS(ish) in Ninox) Within 3 months I more or less had a complete fully working system in Ninox. Whereas in MS Access I had barely got past got past the tables/forms and a few tasks done. Hence I dropped MS Access. Since then, it has all been about enhancements taking my system beyond what I had originally scoped for.

What I like about Ninox it is that it essentially lets you focus on just getting on with the task you want to acheive and do as little or as much scripting as you want without having to worry about every minute attribute. Sure MS Access is awsome and powwerful, but to do it justice you need to read the access bible (I did twice!) and the build learning curve is huge compared to Ninox. 

I think you might benefit from getting access to the EN2021 Ninox tech ref - Can't remember how you get access to this , but I think you just email support for this. Also the support from the forum is great ! Sean/Stephen/John to name but a few! Ninox themselves have a few weaknesses Ie they are not currently active on the forum (shame) but prefer the join us on line zoom webinar type of approach and the lack of a decent tech manual does not help newbies!

I'm impressed re the warhammer paint database shots. My son works for Events at Games Workshop factory HQ in Nottingham - His favoutites is 40k and his paint list is in excel! He tried to teach me to play Bloodbowl the other day ! - Think I will stick to programming synths!

@Mel, I have a very expensive ERP system which I would love to dispense with. I always thought I would replace it with FileMaker but I am leaning more and more towards Ninox. Are there any Gotcha's that you faced in building your system? I am most impressed with your story by the way, well done.

 

Regards John

Hi John 

Basically, my take on this was that all my production had been on Sapphires Dataease right from it’s DOS days back in early 1990’s and had grown up through the various upgrades. Although multi user, it was very much procedural driven using a variation SQL.(DQL).  The beauty of Dataease this that is RAD and essentially you design the form and the underlying table at the same time! Trouble was that as at 2020 despite being a windows platform and moving to a somewhat more event driven basis it was still well behind the likes of Filemaker and MS Access etc. Ie you still could not email through it without jumping through many hoops.

I like Filemaker as I own an early software set. But I did not like the current pricing scale for the amount of users I needed. MS Access (for me) falls in that I’m not interested in setting up loads of attributes to say a text field – ie shine/sunken field etc.  Useful as they are – I want a filed to hold data! In the end MS Access turned out to be too heavy weight and too slow to deploy also I did not want the complication of getting that into the cloud etc. (To be fair I absolutely love Excel ! Especially when VBA is employed!)

So given that I am very much a business man first and my primary task is to create/sell and generate a profit. Coding for me is very much a hobby and became and essential much have to do exactly what I want as opposed to having something off the shelf that I have to bend our working to fit (my skill level is sort of intermediate). After much testing of several software. I finally settled on Access and Ninox to test thoroughly for. Solid month and found that I could get much more done in Ninox and in a fraction of the time!

My Initial goal was to do away with our servers and get all our production / marketing into the cloud within 4 years.

With Ninox the first step was to the get customer/supply files quotations/product file and all general aspects of the factory production stages into one system inc all email notifications (order acks/dispatch etc) and go paperless! Within 1 year. This was achieved with 3 months.

Once this was done it was all about bolting on other tasks and enhancements.

Keeping customer quotes/orders/supplier quotes/ acknowledgments on file with the jobs.

Automating as much as possible ie Having the ability to auto remind clients of a product they purchased x months ago.

Cross tracking completed jobs to our accounts system Invoices (need to automate this stage so need to link Ninox to Sage – so might invoice in sage and batch export to Sage ledger cards).

Next step was the migrate our data another Database for our Marketing generation – We have over 600k records which is worked on daily to update info in many fields and these are crucial to getting new business. So much of this is down to having views that update showing each user what calls have been done and what tasks still lie ahead. This has grown into what we call OnCall and is very sim to a CRM- we have a series of scripted buttons that the operator can use to fire off info / offers etc. At the same time we are mailing in excess of 60k records each week.

I also built into Ninox an internal alternative email system that my staff use instead of outlook etc but can also from a button add Jobs to follow up that have an issue ie customer still not supplied artwork! Etc.

Of course there have been and will continue to be some challenges on this journey but by and large they are relatively small.

Ie Currently I want to auto dispatch (email an internal email to our factory dispatch to remind them of jobs that are promised to go out from with 2 days of today. To do this It needs to be done when a user logs in at the start of each day!. Doable - but I can’t quite get the script right as it either does not work at all or fires off every time ignoring the selection critiera. However I will get there!

Next tasks – Somehow want to get to a stage where my customers can see their own jobs through production via a web page – and also want customers to be able to fill in a form and add the print file that is sucked down and creates the job in production for me! Albeit it on hold until we approve and release it - Don’t know how to achieve any of this (YET!) but will get there- I have hear mention of Zapier etc but have not as yet looked at this.

What I do know is that since moving onto Ninox. The business has become much more efficient and productive and definitely we removed a lot of duplication out of the chain. That has given us more time to be even more proactive to grow the business and control margin. That has to be good!

So Ninox – Great software and gives you the ability to scope and deploy very quick! No coding if want but the joy is pushing what it can do via scripts.

Poor manual (even for basic users) no real teccy manual. Dataease has 5 - basic/design/advanced /scripting/ reporting etc. MS Access – brilliant online help – The Access bible (wow what a book) plus shed loads of online forum help etc. Ninox’s visibility on user forum – virtually non existant. (shame!)

Best attribute – the many co users that contribute and help on the USER forum ! Worth its weight in gold!

However I’m sticking with it and actually love it! I can more or less design/ create and deploy what I want in rapid time!

Sure some things are fixed in stone. But hey …….. that’s not so bad and just image what I could really to if I were a bit more teccy!

Hi Mel

 

Thank you for such a thorough answer. It's amazing what you have done.

 

Regards John