>First, unless you're supporting Windows 3.1, I'd recommend upgrading to 5.0 as fast as possible. VFP 3.0 is a little buggier than one would like.

We are still stuck with Win 3.1 due to older PCs :-(



>>My question is what is the best approach to forms which need to display related info (fields) from multiple (3+) tables? Do I forego normalization and create redundant tables? Keep fighting Views? Argh.
>
>You are much better off staying normalized - doing otherwise will cause hair loss due to tearing :)

Thanks, my instincts said this too, just need confirmation ;-).

>Can you give us some sense of the resulting data structure? I find myself assuming there's one driving parent table, in which case it's at worst a long SELECT,

Ok, here's one needed form:

- text box listing an agency/company name from the Agency table
- grid with columns containing (for that specific agency/company) my position, first name, middle, last, phone, email fields.

I have a Position table containing the Position Name, and a Person table containing the remaining fields. These two have a many-to-many relationship, thus a Contacts table exists containing the corresponding Position code and Person code for a specific position/person relationship. I also need the Agency Code from the Person table to filter only the Positions/People for the Agency listed in the text box at the "moment". Ideally I wanted a view with all of my fields needed for the grid which would be a Child of the Agency (Parent) table used in the text box. The "Next" button would change to the next Agency and thus refresh the grid with that Agency's contacts. I just can't seem to make the View a Child since I can't get an index on it. I keep thinking I'm missing something here, but think I'm too close to it at the moment to see it :-(.

Your thoughts?