Repeating Events in FileMaker

DayBack includes a script that allows you to create repeating events. In order to access it, you'll need to edit your event in a FileMaker layout instead of using DayBack's popover or specify the relevant fields manually if you want to call these scripts outside of DayBack.

How Repetitions Work and How to Manage Them 

Here’s how DayBack handles repeating events:

• Individual Event Records: Each repetition is treated as its own separate event record. These records are linked together by a shared event ID stored in the SampleEvents::DBk_Repeating_id field. You can script a find on this field to bring all the repetitions of an event into the found set.
• Editing Repetitions: Once created, each event in the series can be independently edited, moved, or deleted without affecting the other events in the repetition.

• Bulk Editing or Deleting Repetitions: To make changes to all repetitions of an event simultaneously—or to delete them all—click on an event in the calendar view, then click the "repeat" button on the "Event Detail" layout. This will give you the option to view all repetitions of that event in a list.

  From there, you can use the "Replace Field Contents" command from FileMaker’s Records menu to apply changes across the found set. (Place your cursor in the field you wish to edit—possibly make your edit—before selecting "Replace Field Contents" from the Records menu.) You can also perform a search on the event's DBk_Repeating_id field, as this is the key that binds the repeating events together.

Using Repeat Functionality Manually

By default, the repeat scripts in DayBack rely on details from your source's field mapping, which are set by DayBack in the $$DBk_Values variable. However, you can manually set these details to use the repeat scripts when accessing your event detail layout from a custom button action or another method.

Keep in mind that the new events aren’t actually created until the "Close And Update Event - DayBack" script is executed. Therefore, you’ll either need to run that script after setting up the repeat rule or trigger event creation manually by extracting the relevant steps from that script.

Here’s an example script that sets the $$DBk_Values global variable with the necessary field mapping information for the repeating scripts to function. Be sure to replace the SampleEvents_DayBack fields in this script with the appropriate fields from your event table.

Repetition Limits

Yes, but there is a default limit. To prevent the accidental creation of millions of records, the calendar’s repeating events script has both a date limit and a number-of-repetitions limit. By default, repetitions are not created past January 1, 2030, and there is a limit of 500 repetitions per event.

You can adjust these limits by modifying the first two variables declared in the script "Build Repetition List (Repeat_StartDate; Repeat_Rule)."