It is helpful to think of a FileMaker® Pro database like a spreadsheet or a table in a text document. Each column or category of the table is a field in a database. There can be thousands of different fields in a FileMaker® Pro file. These fields may contain numbers, text, dates, times and other data, such as a picture or audio file.
Each row in the table is a separate record. It is important to understand this concept and know clearly what each record contains in each file. In the sbSTUDENTS database for example, each record contains an enrolled student at the school. The sbFAMILIES database contains a record for every family that has ever inquired about the school, that has children enrolled in the school, or that has children who have graduated or withdrawn from the school.
While it is possible to use a table or a spreadsheet as a simple database, a true database is needed to be able to rearrange the fields to make the data easier to view and understand. Numerous fields can be grouped on a screen according to categories such as name data, address data, or interview data in order to better look at all the fields for a single record.
A database can also be searched or queried to isolate specific records that contain certain data and the results of the search can be viewed in new ways. For example, you may want to find all the new families at the school for this year or all the female students in a specific grade or any students who have not returned their emergency form. This is not possible with a spreadsheet or word processor. That is why school data are best managed with a database.
In FileMaker® Pro, one never sees this “hidden” structure. Data written into a field is stored in a “hidden” date table that then provides your data to all the layouts in the file. The data does not belong to any one layout or view. There may be fields in the file that do not appear on ANY layouts and other fields that appear on numerous layouts. For example, a student’s name may appear on multiple screens.