Required Fields in DayBack for FileMaker

Backup your file before continuing. These instructions are pretty easy to follow, but having a backup means you can take more risks and easily undo your work if you need to. All the pros backup frequently: it's a great habit to get into.

Copy & Paste Six Required Fields

DayBack can show multiple calendars at the same time, each calendar coming from one of your FileMaker tables (in addition to any Google, O365, or Basecamp calendars you have access to). 

For each table you'd like to see on the calendar, DayBack requires 6 fields you likely don't have in your table already. You'll find these fields in the SampleEvents_DayBack table that comes with DayBack Calendar. Please copy them from there and paste them into any table you'd like to use for a calendar.  Read the notes below as a few of the fields need to be modified once they're pasted into your table.

Note that these fields only need to be added to tables that are the  source for a calendar: tables where your dates live. You don't need these fields in related tables like contacts, for example.

The Required Fields

  • DBk_Expression
  • DBk_JSON
  • DBk_JSON_ListOf
  • DBk_Repeating_id
  • DBk_TimestampStartCalcNum
  • DBk_TimestampEndCalcNum

Notes

  • DBk_Expression
    • This is a simple text field defined with global storage.
    • No changes are necessary once you add it to your table.
  • DBk_JSON
    • An unstored calc defined as Evaluate ( DBk_Expression )
    • Set the "Evaluate this calculation from the context of:" dropdown to the same table occurrence you'll be using for DayBack.
  • DBk_JSON_ListOf
    • A summary field that's a List of DBk_JSON
    • No changes are necessary once you add it to your table.
  • DBk_Repeating_id
    • A text field to support repeating events; please add this field even if you don't plan to use repeating events
    • No changes are necessary once you add it to your table.
  • DBk_TimestampStartCalcNum
    • A calculation that must be defined to return a number.
    • This field will likely be commented out when you paste it into your file, meaning it will be surrounded by /* comment tabs */.
    • Remove the comment tags from the beginning and end of the calculation and replace "DateStart" and "TimeStart" with the relevant fields from your table.
    • Set the "Evaluate this calculation from the context of:" dropdown to the same table occurrence you'll be using for DayBack.
    • You may not have all the fields referenced here and in the field below. You may not have an end date field in your solution; you may also lack the time fields mentioned in this calc. The simplest thing is to add these fields to your events table: that makes the integration simpler and lets you take advantage of multi-day events should the scope of your events change. (Note that if you want to enforce that events never have times or never span more than 1 day you can use auto-enter calcs in your newly created fields to force them to be blank.)
  • DBk_TimestampEndCalcNum
    • A calculation that must be defined to return a number.
    • This field will also likely be commented out when you paste it into your file, meaning it will be surrounded by /* comment tabs */.
    • Remove the comment tags from the beginning and end of the calculation and replace the fields referenced with the relevant fields from your table.
    • Set the "Evaluate this calculation from the context of:" dropdown to the same table occurrence you'll be using for DayBack.

Other Fields You May Want

The following fields aren't required, but you may want to add them as they'll make the integration easier. Again, you'll find copies of these fields in the SampleEvents_DayBack table that comes with DayBack Calendar.

  • DBk_ColorCalc
    • Your events will be color-code by status in DayBack--or by whatever field you map to "Status". And you may want to see those colors on your other layouts outside of DayBack. This text field reads the status colors you configure in DayBack and uses them to display that color your FileMaker layout. You can see how this field is used in the "Event List" layout in DayBack.
    • This field will likely be commented out when you paste it into your table, so remove the /* comment tabs */ and replace the reference to "Status" with whatever field you've mapped to Status in your table.
    • Set the "Evaluate this calculation from the context of:" dropdown to the same table occurrence you'll be using for DayBack.
  • DBk_EventSummaryCalc
    • This is a calculated field that formats how your events show up in the calendar before you click on them. Check out the example that comes with DayBack's Sample Events table: this is the field you'll customize to add icons to your events.
    • Set the "Evaluate this calculation from the context of:" dropdown to the same table occurrence you'll be using for DayBack.
  • Auto-Enter Options for Your Time Fields
    • The TimeStart and TimeEnd fields in SampleEvents_DayBack have some auto-enter calcs applied that you may want to add to your time fields.
    • These are designed to make it much easier to work with times that may land at midnight.