Comments on: Importing Related Data Into Bento

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:46:03 +0000

Hi Julia and apologies for the delay in replying. Unfortunately, as Florian said and as you have discovered, Bento seems unable to perform some seemingly basic functionality and importing and ‘re-stitching’ related data is unfortunately one of those things. There isn’t a simple solution, especially considering the search issue so I’m afraid you either stuck with manually re-mapping your data or switching to something more capable like FileMaker Pro.

Please, however, do go and post your thoughts in the official Bento forums at http://forums.filemaker.com/groups/a13a2dc617/summary?lang=en_US so that FileMaker are aware of them and one day they may add some functionality to fix this.

By: Florian

Florian — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:50:44 +0000

Julia,
I forwarded your comment to Simon who wrote this post. He must be busy at the moment since he hasn’t responded.
I can’t be of much help. Bento is NOT a relational database app. What it offers is pseudo-relational data, so I understand your frustration.
And yes, when you search for something Bento will return results which contain your search term. I don’t know if there is a more exact way to search.
But you can add any number of records to a Related Data field at once. You can select the whole list with cmd-A for example. Or you can copy and paste whole lists from another app.

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:22:45 +0000

I’m also trying to import related data into Bento, and I don’t understand why it’s so complicated! I’m more used to use Access that makes more sense to me. Bento simply looks easier but hides the way it works! Don’t understand how to relate data except linking you’re things one by one… -_-’ This is ridiculous! What’s the point of having this program if it can’t even do this!?

When I try doing like in the example, when I search the PID#, it gives me all the PIDs that start with the number I’m looking for and not the unique solution (ex: search PID5, it gives me PID5, PID51, PID52, etc).

Please tell me there is a solution to this and I don’t need to relate manually every of my 800 lines! -_-’

By: Florian

Florian — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:28:48 +0000

Frank,
actually, there is one shortcut. If you create a loop of Related Data fields, you at least only have to do half of the work of linking records. Example:
One Library consists of personal patient data (name, address,…). The second Library consists of service records (doctor visits, prescriptions,…). Then you create two Related Data fields: first you drag the data Library onto the Service Library, then you drag the Service Library onto the data Library to close the loop. If you now link a patient to a visit, that visit is automatically added to the patient Library (into the Related Data field), hence half the work. (I hope I made that clear enough…)
Otherwise there is no automatic linking, not even if the Related Data field comes from a Smart Collection. I hope that feature will be added someday.

I can’t speak to Filemaker Pro, I have never used it. You could ask that question in the Filemaker Pro forums.

By: Frank Petrallo

Frank Petrallo — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:33:23 +0000

Love this Doc, Great info!
Do I Understand the Only way to link two “Imported” Tables (I do come from an MS Access DB) is to create a related Data field then actually go through All 800 Records to Associate the 100 to 500 Records per Record? This sound like more work then Learning FileMaker, Will File Maker relate tables Easier? Thanx

By: Florian

Florian — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:41:31 +0000

John,
the way you could access Filemaker through Bento would have to be through file import/export. You have to export Filemaker files as text files (called .csv files). Those files can be imported into Bento. And vice versa.

By: John Woods

John Woods — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:54:30 +0000

My assistant has an old database (FileMaker Pro 3) that she must access regularly. I too need to access it (link to it), and would like to do so via Bento. That way, each of us has our preferred UI. Is there any way to do this? Any help someone could give would be much appreciated.

By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 06:52:07 +0000

Hi Jon,

Well I guess that this is one of those situations where it is better to let individuals choose their own preference based on which works better for them but, once again, thanks for the tip.

By: Jon Longworth

Jon Longworth — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:13:15 +0000

Hi Simon,

On the contrary, I think this will work faster with a larger number of records than other techniques because Bento™ developers thought of including a scroll bar on the “Add related records” dialog and their sorting algorithm is blazingly quick.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:55:15 +0000

Hi Jon and thanks for the tip. This will work really well too but may not be as suitable if there are hundreds or thousands of records to match where a search may be faster.

By: Jon Longworth

Jon Longworth — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:03:37 +0000

Alternatively:-
Instead of adding “PID” prefix, sorting, and the deleting PID afterward,

For each patient record:
Sort the Patient ID column in the “Add related records” Dialog. Scroll down to the matching Patient ID and shift click to select all the same ID’s. Then click “Add to list”

By: rockinchair1

rockinchair1 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:55:46 +0000

Simon,

Congratulations on two beautifully submitted tutorials this date, April 11, 2008.

I am so glad with your assistance I was able to set up an RSS feed from my iMac to your website and get notified the date they are put up on your site.

I continue to learn many things from people such as yourself who are unselfish in the giving of themselves so that others might learn. That is a great gift you have.

Thank you so miuch.

David