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Need help organizing some information

Hello Ninox forums! I've been using the macOS version of Ninox for about 2 weeks, its the first time I've ever sat down and got serious about using a database to keep my business organized.

Currently I've got a few tables:
Contacts
Companies
Productions

For any given Production, I will hire some assistants to help me. Up until I started using Ninox I would use a spreadsheet to help me visualize 8 days around the dates of a job, and put each assistant in a cell under the dates, color coded with the kind of work they are doing.

 

I cannot figure out how to express this data in the same way inside Ninox. Any ideas?

Thank you!

30 replies

null
    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Welcome to Ninox, . Welcome to the world of relational database. It is a very different world than the flat spreadsheet world, so be open to unlearning what you are use to.

    Now on to your question.

     said:
    For any given Production, I will hire some assistants to help me.

    You will probably have more than 1 assistant per production record. You might be tempted to create multiple assistant fields, i.e. a text field called assistant1 and another called assistant2, etc. If you ever find yourself wanting to create multiple fields that hold the same kind of data, what you need is a sub/child table.

    That means you will need a table to store your assistants/workers/employee data we can call it Workers for now.

    Then you will create a new table called Assistants and then put a reference field to Production and one to Workers. Then change the Composition parameter of Production to Yes. This makes Assistants a child of Production.

    Why make it a child of Production and not workers? Well a record in Assistants wouldn't exist without a record Production. A record in Assistant can exist even if there is no record in Worker, it could be a place holder.

    Now when you create a record in Production you will see a table called Assistants. You then would click on the Create Record button at the bottom of the table and it will then create a new record in Assistants and automatically link it to the record in Production (in fact this link is hidden when accessed through Production) then allow you to pick the Worker you want.

    Give that a try and let us know how it goes.

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      Hello thank you so much for your warm welcome!

      I am going to go into more detail here because after about 10 days of trial and error, I have in fact dipped my toes into relationship tables!

      I've included a screenshot of the first tab in my "Productions" table with some web-safe information added. Here I can add info on who was doing what position, which company was producing, what photographer was shooting, was this a commercial? If there is it'll add fields for cinematographer and director.  The way this is great too is I can see all the jobs people have worked on from their contact information entry, which really makes this entire thing very useful (especially when I'm done adding the last 10 years of jobs to this database!).

      I have a relationship table setup in each job that shows which assistants I have employed oone additional field, if they were my lead or not. This is where i've stagnated and have stumped myself.

       

    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    That looks great. You have done a great job.

     said:
    I have a relationship table setup in each job that shows which assistants I have employed oone additional field, if they were my lead or not. This is where i've stagnated and have stumped myself.

    What is your question?

    You may want to consider making a People table and then use a multichoice field called Position where you can track if a person is a photographer, assistant, cinematographer, etc. I'm sure people can do multiple jobs, so this way you don't have to move people between tables. In fact they can also become clients or contacts for production companies.

    So you want to try to not copy data when you don't have to. Keep all data that is similar together.

    • BuffaloTony
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Thanks Fred!

    I guess my question is related to this excel sheet I used to use to make a labor schedule/breakdown.

    If i have a relationship table setup with my assistants, and in that have a multiple choice field where I can say "over these 8 days, McCoy K is going to work Trucking, Build and On-Set" how can i make display that information in my production table arranged like this.

    Is there a way to take information from a relationship table and display it as text fields with drop down menus next to them, dynamically, as more information is added to that relationship table?

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      There are ways. If you want to see something like this it would probably take some html/CSS coding. Are you using the app or the public cloud?

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      I'm using the desktop app, macOS.

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      can you upload a sample DB?

    • BuffaloTony
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Absolutely - I've uploaded a test database that is a copy of the one I'm currently using but with test information entered. Take a look and let me know what you think!

    • BuffaloTony
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Also - i've filled it out as if I were entering in all of my real information!

    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Here is a first go at the code:

    Attached is the modified DB. I created a new table called Labor as I needed dates and people linked.

    I couldn't figure out a way to programmatically create columns in a table, so I ended up creating a table for each date. Then I nested each of them inside another table so I can show the dates horizontally. Kind of old fashion, but quick, well kind of, and dirty.

    I hope your html/css skills are decent as now you can do more formatting.

    I will probably try using grids to see if that will be cleaner.

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      WOW FRED LOOK AT THAT!

      I'm going to poke around at this later tonight when i get more free time. Earlier in the day I had been playing around and took an alternate approach and I'm wondering if we'd be able to merge the two.

       

      In the crew information Table on the production tab I added some fields to the assistant entry

      "Day 1" "Day 2" etc (ultimately I would like there to be 8 days total, as, historically this has been all i would need to schedule.

      Then on the "Crew information" tab of the production table

      This is where I feel your CSS would come in handy, it could help me organize this better, PLUS, I don't want the table names to be "Day 1, Day 2, etc."

      Is there a way in Ninox to use a formula to change the display name of a column in a table?

      Ideally I would like to use something like:

      let wS := 'Start Date' -4;
      weekdayName(wS) + " " + day(wS)
      

      This would make the name of "Day 1" column Monday 29

      Again, thanks for being a sounding board and offering up your knowledge, its very much appreciated.

    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view
     said:
    "Day 1" "Day 2" etc (ultimately I would like there to be 8 days total, as, historically this has been all i would need to schedule.

    Just a reminder that duplicating field names that store the same type of information can cause problems in the future when performing summaries and such. If you find yourself wanting to do this you should consider creating a sub table. Take a look at the Labor table I created in the DB I uploaded.

    The sub table allows you to have as few or many days. You said you will only need 8 days, but what happens if you have a 9 day job (cause your business is growing)? Then you have a 12 day job.

     said:
    Is there a way in Ninox to use a formula to change the display name of a column in a table?

    When you click on the column, the edit window opens and you can type any name you want. Sadly the name can not be based on a formula. If you want this then you will have to create HTML tables like in my example.

    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Messing around a bit more I got this:

    with this code:

    let getLaborData := (Labor order by Date);
    let getUniqueDates := unique(getLaborData.Date);
    let data := for loop1 in getUniqueDates do
            {
                date: format(loop1, "dddd DD"),
                worker: (getLaborData[Date = loop1] order by Type).{
                    name: Contacts.Name,
                    type: Type
                }
            }
        end;
    let css := "
        <style>
            .outsidetable {
                width: 100%;
            }
            .outsideTR {
                vertical-align: top
            }
            .insideTable {
                border: 1px solid black;
                width: 100%
            };
            .insideTR {
                border: 1px solid black;
            }
            .insideTD {
                font-weight: bold;
            }
            th {
                height: 45px;
                font-size: 110%
            }
            .headBck:{background-color: grey};
            tr:nth-child(even){background-color: grey};
        </style>";
    let outsideTable := "
        <table class = 'outsidetable'>
            <tr class = 'outsideTR'>" +
        data.("<td>
                <table class='insideTable'>
                    <thead>
                        <tr>
                            <th align='center', height='15px'>" +
        date +
        "</th>
                        </tr>
                    </thead>
                    <tbody>
                    " +
        for loop2 in worker do
            let datacolor := switch loop2.type do
                case 1:
                    "bgcolor = 'LightGreen'"
                case 2:
                    "bgcolor = 'yellow'"
                case 3:
                    "bgcolor = 'orange'"
                case 4:
                    "bgcolor = 'LightCoral'"
                end;
            "<tr class='insideTR'>
                    <td class='insideTD' " +
            datacolor +
            ">" +
            loop2.name +
            "</td>
                </tr>"
        end +
        "
                </tbody>
            </table>
        </td>
        ");
    "
            </tr>
        </table>
    ";
    html(css + outsideTable)
    

    The big change was I created my own table using JSON. You see this on line 3.

    Also added a bit more styling.

    • BuffaloTony
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Wow bill that looks great. I have messed around with this as well, taking your advice and shifting this away from a big mess of choices to a relationship table.

    I've been playing around with how best to enter the information and I ended up changing things to a dynamic choice field and a choice field.

    Which brings me to a question:

    In this part of your CSS it seems like you re-define what each choice color would be

    let datacolor := switch loop2.type do
                case 1:
                    "bgcolor = 'LightGreen'"
                case 2:
                    "bgcolor = 'yellow'"
                case 3:
                    "bgcolor = 'orange'"
                case 4:
                    "bgcolor = 'LightCoral'"
                end;
    

    is it not possible to do something like:

    let datacolor := color(DayPosition)
    

    It would be nice if we didn't have to rely on pre-defined options, like you've been stressing, because there could come a time where my daily work categories could increase (maybe i add a sewist, draper, painter, etc).

    I tried a few ways could not seem to get it to work, I have almost zero html/css skills.

    I have also tried to get your new code working with my new tables with no success. It wouldn't throw any errors but it would not output any information, so in this database its still with the old formatting

     

    Again thanks for your help

    -Buffalo

    • Fred
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view
     said:
    is it not possible to do something like:
    let datacolor := color(DayPosition)

    I didn't even know color() was a command. Thanks for showing me it.

    That is a great use of the command. You have to use the raw() command as well, because the raw() command turns the display color into hex color code that html will understand. Now you can get rid of the datacolor all together. It would look something like:

    for loop2 in getLaborData[Date = loop1] do
                "<tr>
                    <td bgcolor = " +
                        raw(color(loop2.DayPosition)) +
                    "> " +
                        loop2.asstName +
                    "</td>
                 </tr>"
            end +
            "
            </tbody>
            </table>
            </td>
            "
        end;
    

    That is awesome. Love it.

    Some other thoughts:

    1) in the Labor Breakdown code there is a variable "content" that is not used and can be deleted.

    2) Tables Work Days, Production Crew, and Art Assistants could be made children of Production. You do this by setting Composition to Yes in each table.

    3) You use a dynamic choice field, Assistant?, in Work Days, may I suggest you remove the '?', this will make is easier for you to use the field in code as you can just type in Assistant. If you left the '?' then you would have to type 'Assistant?' with the single quotes whenever you use the field name.

    4) You may want to consider making a Labor Cost table that has each position and the Day Rate. Then in the Art Assistant table you would

    a) create another text field called Position

    b) create another dynamic field that has a Trigger after update that populates the Position and Day Rate fields.

    c) consider creating a discount number field either in Production or a link to a discount field in Estimates.

    Keep up the good work.

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      - i've taken some of your advice and have started to completely rework this, however I'm stuck on using your "raw(color())" function, i cannot get ninox to correctly recognize it. I'm clearly doing something wrong regarding the loops but after a day of poking at it I cannot figure out where the issue is.

       

      let getLaborData := (WorkingPositions order by WorkDate);
      let getUniqueDates := unique(getLaborData.WorkDate);
      let data := for loop1 in getUniqueDates do
              {
                  date: format(loop1, "dddd DD"),
                  worker: (getLaborData[WorkDate = loop1] order by Position).{
                      name: text(Assistant),
                      type: Position
                  }
              }
          end;
      let css := "
          <style>
              .outsidetable {
                  width: 100%;
              }
              .outsideTR {
                  vertical-align: top;
              }
              .insideTable {
                  border: 1px inset black;
                  width: 100%
              };
              .insideTR {
                  border: 1px solid black;
              }
              .insideTD {
                  font-weight: bold;
              }
              th {
                  height: 45px;
                  font-size: 110%
              }
              .headBck:{background-color: grey};
              tr:nth-child(even){background-color = grey};
          </style>";
      let outsideTable := "
          <table class = 'outsidetable'>
              <tr class = 'outsideTR'>" +
          data.("<td>
                  <table class='insideTable'>
                      <thead>
                          <tr>
                              <th align='center', height='15px'>" +
          date +
          "</th>
                          </tr>
                      </thead>
                      <tbody>
                      " +
          for loop2 in worker do
              "<tr class='insideTR'>
                      <td class='insideTD' bgcolor =" +
              ">" +
              loop2.name +
              "</td>
              </tr>"
          end +
          "
                  </tbody>
              </table>
          </td>
          ");
      "
              </tr>
          </table>
      ";
      html(css + outsideTable)
      

      Here is the code I'm working with. the bgcolor section has been left blank.

      putting in

      raw(color(loop2.Position))
      

      throws a function not defined error. Thanks for your time!

      • Ninox partner
      • RoSoft_Steven.1
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      What if you use text(color(loop2.Position)) ?

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      That is because once you put Position in a JSON the data is just the text of the choice. JSON data is classified as [any] data, so it has no other characteristics that Ninox can recognize.

      If you look at the code I posted, I used your code which used the getLaborData variable. The code you posted used my JSON "table" which uses the 'sub table' worker.

      Two ways to get this to work:

      1) go back to your code using getLaborData

      2) add a new field to the JSON:

      let data := for loop1 in getUniqueDates do
              {
                  date: format(loop1, "dddd DD"),
                  worker: (getLaborData[WorkDate = loop1] order by Position).{
                      name: text(Assistant),
                      type: Position,
                      color: raw(color(Position))
                  }
              }
          end;

      then change loop2 to:

      for loop2 in worker do
              "<tr class='insideTR'>
                      <td class='insideTD' bgcolor = " + loop2.color
              ">" +
              loop2.name +
              "</td>
              </tr>"
          end
      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       

      Hey Steven -

      Thanks for the suggestion, I also get an error when I do that. I bet it has something to do with the database structure or the loops i'm using, like I've set this entire thing up incorrectly somehow.

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      Okay, so I had tried that earlier and got another "function not defined" error, which persists even if I copy and paste your code into the block

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

       Looks like I don't have your most recent version of the DB. What kind of field is Position? In a separate formula field in WorkingPositions can you put:

      raw(color(Position))

      in and get a result?

    • BuffaloTony
    • 6 mths ago
    • Reported - view

    Position is a multiple-choice field.

    attached is my recent DB.

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      Looks like color() only like single choice fields, don't know if it likes dynamic choice.

      Is there a reason Position is multi choice? It might be better to have a separate record for each job a worker does.

      • BuffaloTony
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      That did it!

      let getLaborData := (WorkingPositions order by WorkDate);
      let getUniqueDates := unique(getLaborData.WorkDate);
      let data := for loop1 in getUniqueDates do
              {
                  date: format(loop1, "dddd DD"),
                  worker: (getLaborData[WorkDate = loop1] order by NewPosition).{
                      name: text(Assistant),
                      type: NewPosition,
                      color: text(color(NewPosition))
                  }
              }
          end;
      let css := "
          <style>
              .outsidetable {
                  width: 100%;
              }
              .outsideTR {
                  vertical-align: top;
              }
              .insideTable {
                  border: 1px inset black;
                  width: 100%
              };
              .insideTR {
                  border: 1px solid black;
              }
              .insideTD {
                  font-weight: bold;
              }
              th {
                  height: 45px;
                  font-size: 110%
              }
              .headBck:{background-color: grey};
              tr:nth-child(even){background-color = grey};
          </style>";
      let outsideTable := "
          <table class = 'outsidetable'>
              <tr class = 'outsideTR'>" +
          data.("<td>
                  <table class='insideTable'>
                      <thead>
                          <tr>
                              <th align='center', height='15px'>" +
          date +
          "</th>
                          </tr>
                      </thead>
                      <tbody>
                      " +
          for loop2 in worker do
              "<tr class='insideTR'>
                      <td class='insideTD' bgcolor = " +
              loop2.color +
              ">" +
              loop2.name +
              "</td>
              </tr>"
          end +
          "
                  </tbody>
              </table>
          </td>
          ");
      "
              </tr>
          </table>
      ";
      html(css + outsideTable)
      

      After this I turned to investigate the print-view functions of ninox and found, much to my dismay, that formulas that include HTML do not show up in print-view. This is very unfortunate! I was hoping to use this to make a PDF to send out. So I may need to rethink this approach altogether!

      Next I'm going to try to make the day's tally up, display how many of each kind of days we have and give out a labor total.

      • Fred
      • 6 mths ago
      • Reported - view

      Yeah, printing is a whole another beast in Ninox. I would recommend NOT using the default print engine as it is pretty bad. Start looking into dynamic printing.

      Since you are using JSON in your HTML, you can copy the code straight over into your dynamic printing and you will have access to the same name and data.

      Once you get into dynamic printing you may want to open a new post so those more knowledgeable can chime in.

Content aside

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