In many of my apps, it requires associating some data with a contact in addressbook. What I used to do is save the record id of an ABPerson and use that id to pull information upon each app launch. However, more and more I find that this approach is wrong because many times a user will use a service like mobileme where the addressbook is wiped and resynced. This causes the record id to change and all associations are lost. The user will have to go through each one and re-link them.
What is a better approach to holding a robust pointer to addressbook entries?
You should store three values: the record ID, the first name, and the last name.
1) In the case that the record ID hasn't changed, you're golden - just use that to locate the proper record.
2) If ABAddressBookGetPersonWithRecordID() does not locate a record for your stored record ID (it returns NULL), then you'll need to search the person records for a match based on the first and last name. You can drop down to using ABAddressBookCopyPeopleWithName() potentially or write your own locating code if you already have an array with all the person records in-memory. Locating the new record is up to you. Once to locate the new record, you can update your data storage with the new record ID.
Ultimately, you end up storing the record ID to use directly incase it doesn't change (if you're lucky) plus storing some keys from the address book entry that are unlikely to change. The name of the person or organization associated with an address book entry is most likely to change. You should, of course, account for the case where you may not find a record with the stored record ID or by searching for the name. This could trivially mean that the record was deleted, or it could mean that the record was renamed. You should handle that case whichever way you decide is best for your specific application.
I know this was last year, however, I thought I might suggest a method I use. The first time I ask the user to pick a contact (in order to associate certain of my app's private data with it) I then grab the record, create my own internal record id (the initials of the app name and a sequence number usually) modify the contact by adding a new ABRelatedName (type of "pref" name of "Other") value of my own internal record id. It looks like this in the .vcf
item3.X-ABRELATEDNAMES;type=pref:BZA101
item3.X-ABLabel:_$!<Other>!$_
That way, I can simply reference that record id when i add more data about the user such as the last time the app user contacted them, etc. Seems to work for me.
Hope that helps someone.
If the address book is indeed being completely wiped and re-loaded, and the only part that doesn't change is the display name, then storing the display name as the link seems like the only option.
Related
I've done some small projects in Access before, and I'm having an issue wrapping my head around something a bit more complicated.
I'm setting up a database to track boats. (I'll spare you the story of why.) I have two main tables: Table A is all of the information on the individual boats, table B is all of the owner's information. For ease of use on the users, I need to create a form that mimics the hand written form people filled out that the user needs to enter into the database.
This seems simple enough, and if I was using a simple DB as I have in the past, I wouldn't be here looking for help. BUT, since the form has the boat and owner information, I need the form to always enter the boat information into Table A, but when the owner information is entered, I need to check Table B to see if the person is already in the table, and if they're not, add the owner information to Table B, and associate the two records, OR if the check shows the owner information is already in Table B, I need it to associate the new boat information being put into the form, and thus being put into table A with the owner information that is already in table B so I don't wind up with duplicate data.
This probably sounds more complicated when I explain it than it actually is, but since I'm stuck with the handwritten form that's already created, I'm trying to make this as simple as I can on the end user. Basically, since one person can own more than one boat, I need it to check before adding new user info, and get the boat info to either associate with the new owner entry, or the one that already exists if that's the case.
Any and all assistance is greatly appreciated.
Make the entry form unbound.
Check the owner data against your existing table.
Then if the owner does not yet exist add both an owner record and a boat record, otherwise just add the boat record with the existing owner ID.
I am trying to work around a limitation that Filemaker 12 seems to have. In a value list that links to an ODBC attached SQL Server database, it doesn't display every piece of data. If there are 2 people with the same last name for example, it only displays the first person with that last name in the list. This is verified by the following in the Filemaker documentation (which I found after a lot of digging)
If the value list is defined to display information from two fields, items will not be duplicated for the field on which the value list is sorted. For example, if the value list displays information from the Company field and the Name field, and if the values are sorted by the Company field, only one person from each company will appear in the value list.
Portals on the other hand will find all the related data, I just don't understand how do something with the data once I get it in the portal. I essentially thus wish to use a portal AS my drop-down value list, and then to use it as I would have a value list (which is then to act as the key to do the rest of the lookups on the page to fill out the invoice.
The major issue here (other than this maddening choice Filemaker seems to make) is that the external file I am pulling the data from is an ODBC mounted SQL Server file, so I can't do something easy like a calculated field which would give me last name & " " & first which would make almost every person unique. Filemaker won't let me do that because it says I can't do that with a field that is not indexed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Assuming that we're starting with table MyTable and we're trying to get a ID from the People table for the selected person, which we'll call ID so that we can put it into MyTable::PersonID
Start by creating a new Table Occurrence of your People table and call it PeopleWhoCanBeSelected. If you want every person in the People table you can connect it to MyTable with the X relationship. If you want to show just a subset of the people you can build a different relationship.
Now, on a layout displaying records from MyTable you will make a portal showing records from the PeopleWhoCanBeSelected table.
In the portal put a button. When that button is pressed use the Set Field script step:
Set Field MyTable::PersonID to:
PeopleWhoCanBeSelected::ID
That should do it. You can make the button an invisible overlay on the entire portal record if you like, so that the user clicks on "the name" instead of "the button next to the name".
Now, if you want to pull additional data through to the MyTable record, you'll need to create a second Table Occurrence, called People with the relationship MyTable::PersonID = People::ID. Then you can get information on the specifically chosen person through that relationship.
According to the documentation, there is a Business Rule for Vendor and Employee that says
The name, first name, or last name field should not be blank.
Considering that NAME is required for create, the question is ¿Does this mean that ALL three properties have to have a value on Create?
We understood that, so we ran some tests. Creating a record with the three properties populated has no problem. The issue comes when we try so insert a null value for GivenName and FamilyName (first name and last name).
Quickbooks seems to take the NULL values as valid, and when inserting the record is not returning any error. The problem is that the record that was inserted never shows in the QBD UI, but is seems like it persists somewhere, because if we try to insert it again we get a "duplicate name" error.
Not sure if this is an issue or an expected behaviour... Any hints??
Thanks
QuickBooks for windows has some legacy behavior to be aware of. The First, Last and Name combines for a unique identifier accross Customers, Vendors and Employees. So you should fill in ALL the information you have. Any attempts to insert a record with the same F or L name, will fail if there is a Customer, Vendor or Employee with the same F & L.
Second, you mentioned that the record doesn't show in QuickBooks for Windows?
Did it sync successfully? Did you check the error state of the record you inserted?
Did you look at the sync logs to see if it failed to sync?
Lastly, you need to check all three objects for a user with the same F & L name if you are getting a duplicate error. Normally you would check to see if the customer/vendor/employee exists firsts so you can update the existing or determine if it is in fact a new record.
hope that helps
Jarred
Given that an ABRecordID can change between cloud syncs and under other circumstances out of my control, how can I maintain a long-term reference to an IOS address book record?
Apple provides the following guidance:
"The recommended way to keep a long-term reference to a particular record is to store the first and last name, or a hash of the first and last name, in addition to the identifier. When you look up a record by ID, compare the record’s name to your stored name. If they don’t match, use the stored name to find the record, and store the new ID for the record."
But I don't understand this guidance. If the address book can have duplicate names in it AND since users can modify the name in a record how could this advice work?
For example, if the user modifies the name of an address book record my routine will fail to find it by ABRecordID so if I think search by the name hash I stored couldn't I find a duplicate name instead of the new ABRecordID for that specific record I previously referenced?
In the end, what is the BEST way to get a long-term reference to an IOS AddressBook record? And if the above advice really does work what am I missing?
The most robust (yet not completely failsafe) approach would be to come up with a priority ranking of ABRecord fields and store as much from that list as is available, along with the ABRecordID, into your own (hashed) private record format. When retrieving a private record (or at another convenient time), you can verify that the private record matches the ABRecord and work through a series of fallback checks to ensure it's accurate.
Example priority ranking:
ABRecordID
FirstName
LastName
PhoneNumber
ZipCode
When retrieving a record you can first match the ABRecordID. If that returns no results, you can do a search for FirstName + LastName. You can then match those results against PhoneNumber... etc. In this way you could potentially distinguish between 2 Bob Smiths, as they may have different phone numbers (or one may not have a phone number). Of course, depending on how long your priority list is, the more robust this mechanism will be.
The last resort would be prompting the user to distinguish between 2 Bob Smiths with brand new ABRecordID's whose records are otherwise identical -- after all, such an inconvenient prompt would be far more friendly than allowing the User to contact the wrong Bob Smith (and as I said, would be a last resort).
This solution for AB may involve some synchronization issues, however.
This is a familiar problem for anyone who has worked with the iOS Media Player. Specifically MPMediaItems in the User's Music Library have a property MPMediaItemPropertyPersistentID which the docs describe as:
The value is not guaranteed to persist across a sync/unsync/sync cycle.
In other words, the PersistentID is not guaranteed to be persistent. Solutions for this include doing similar fallback checks on MediaItem properties.
The RecordID only get changed either on delete or reset, when this is done all the new record(s) will have new createdProperty and modifiedProperty as well.
While I am reading the address book for the first time, I will save all entries of the record along with RecordID in my database.
I will save the last time the contacts synced from contacts to my database(name it something: lastSyncedTime) and store it some where.
I am done with syncing the contacts for the first time, now do the following for syncing anytime in future.
while Iterating through all records,
check createdTime(kABPersonCreationDateProperty) vs lastSyncedTime. If createdTime > lastSyncedTime, store the recordID in a "newRecords" NSArray.
If !(step 1) then check modifiedDate(kABPersonModificationDateProperty) vs lastSyncedTime. If modifiedDate > lastSyncedTime, then store the recordID in a "modifiedRecords" NSArray.
if !(1) && !(2) store all recordID in a "unModifiedRecords".
Now I will read all the contacts from my local database,
I will delete all local database records that are not find either in "modifiedRecords" or in "unModifiedRecords".
I will update all "modifiedRecords" in the local database.
I will create new records for all records in "newRecords".
Update the lastSyncedTime accordingly.
The documentation is communicating to you that you can't count on ABRecordID as a permanent identifier.
Consider this scenario: The user has a record for "Bob Smith". The user then deletes his "Bob Smith" record and then imports his contacts from his computer (creating a new ID) through iTunes sync.
So if you want to keep a permanent reference to an existing contact, you can keep a reference to the name and id as a hint that it is the same record you used before- but there is no real permanent reference.
If you keep a permanent reference to an address book contact, you must always be ready to deal with the fact that it may not be the same contact you used before.
Refer :
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/ContactData/Conceptual/AddressBookProgrammingGuideforiPhone/Chapters/DirectInteraction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007744-CH6-SW2
Clearly tells you how to handle it.
I have quite the request. A developer created our database that has multiple Layouts with a relationship tree that is very messy. Had another developer come in, take a look at it, he said that it would be too time consuming and painful to deconstruct our system, consider creating a script for now so that you can work around it until it can be fixed. Here's the dilemma: I've got information on one page that is supposed to reference information on a number of different pages utilizing tabs and portals. However, all the information is linked to a username. This username is not static/serialized or what have you. Therefore, if the issue is not caught right away a great deal of information can be linked to this person's 'page'. If the name is incorrect and someone tries to alter the username even slightly, it breaks that relationship and starts a new one. The information does not disappear, but it is basically sitting in limbo somewhere until you change the name back to the original. I've actually tried exporting the information, changing the information that doesn't match, i.e. changing a name from Jon.Smith to John.Smith, and then importing the information to a new 'page' for that person with unsuccessful results. Which brings me to my question, is a script going to be able to fix this problem? Likewise, are there any suggestions to how to create this script? I apologize, but I have very little experience with DataBase management at all, and am not sure why this project fell upon me. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Well, as a general answer, just about anything that a user can do in FileMaker (and by user, I mean non-developer, so activities such as defining the database structure, writing scripts, etc., are excluded) can be scripted. So if you're able to "solve" the problem by resetting a field's value, for example, then, yes, a script can do that.
Regarding your specific trouble, a script probably doesn't need to export the records, but could reset the values for the field within FileMaker. This could be done either by looping through the records that need to be changed or by using the Replace Field Contents script step. So a script could do something like this:
Go to Layout[MyLayout] // Go to a layout that is attached to the table you need to search.
Perform Find[Restore] // Restore a find that will show the records you need to change.
Replace Field Contents[Table::Field; "New Value"]
Offering more advice than this would require actually seeing the database and understanding more about your specific needs.
wchsTech4, you are in luck because your problem is easy to fix. You don't even need a script.
BACK UP YOUR FILE(S) FIRST. Then:
1) Create two new fields:
id (person table)
Options for id: Auto-enter serial number
person_id (the table related to person)
2) Generate serial numbers for the new id field in the person table.
Navigate to the person layout.
'Records' > 'Show all records'
Click in the id field and select 'Records' > 'Replace field contents.'
Choose 'Replace with serial numbers' and accept the defaults. Be sure to check the box to update your next serial number.
3) Place the serial numbers you just generated in the related table.
Navigate to the related layout.
'Records' > 'Show all records'
Click in the person_id field and select 'Records' > 'Replace field contents.'
Choose 'Specify' next to 'Replace with calculated results.'
In the drop down on the top left, select the related person table.
Double click the id field (your calculation should be person::id, with person replaced with the name of your table).
Click 'OK' and then 'Replace.'
4) Change the relationship.
Select 'File' > 'Manage' > 'Database.'
Navigate to the relationship tab.
Change the relationship from being based on name to id.
5) Test everything. Should work.
There is a chance that your related records are being created in such a manner that you also need to modify a script, website, or something else not mentioned here to have your fix work going forward. That is important to investigate.