Creating and managing layouts and reports > Creating portals to display related records
 
Creating portals to display related records
A portal is a layout object that displays records from related tables. Use a portal only when you want to display data from more than one related record. Portals display data from related fields in rows, one record in each row.
Note  Be sure you’ve defined the table or tables that contain the data to be displayed in the portal and that you’ve defined the relationships. See Defining database tables and Creating and changing relationships.
To create a portal:
1. In Layout mode, click the Portal tool Portal tool in the status toolbar.
2. Position the crosshair pointer on the layout where you want the portal to begin, then drag the pointer diagonally until the portal is the size you want.
3. In the Portal Setup dialog box, for Show related records from, choose the related table from which you want to display related records.
You can also choose Manage Database to create a new table or relationship.
4. Select record options for the portal.
 
To
Select
Sort the records in the portal
Sort portal records (or click Specify). In the Sort dialog box, choose the fields by which to sort the portal records, and click OK.
Filter the records in the portal
Filter portal records (or click Specify). In the Specify Calculation dialog box, define a formula for a calculation to filter the portal records, and click OK.
Allow related records to be deleted from the related table (in Browse mode)
Allow deletion of portal records.
This option does not need to be selected when you use the Delete Portal Row script step.
Display a vertical scroll bar at the right side of the portal, with which users can see (and enter) more records than are visible in the portal at one time
Allow vertical scrolling. Then, for Show scroll bar, choose Always (the default) to have the scroll bar display all the time, or When scrolling to have it display only while scrolling occurs.
To have the scroll bar display the portal’s first record when you exit the current record, select Reset scroll bar when exiting record (or, clear this option so the scroll bar does not reset).
Note  You can’t change the style of scroll bars.
5. Select format options for the portal.
You can specify the initial related record to display in the portal, the number of rows in the portal, and the background color for portal rows. See Formatting portals.
6. Click OK.
7. In the Add Fields to Portal dialog box, choose the fields that you want to appear in the portal, and click OK.
Tip  You can drag objects, such as a related field, onto the first row of an existing portal to add it to the portal.
Related topics 
Deciding where to place related fields
Adding a vertical scroll bar to a field
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