First off I have learned through this process that I suck at databases, I have learned everything I know (still very little) about them in the past 4 weeks and have gotten my butt kicked.
I am trying to build a weekly meal planning database, that I can export 10-15 meals per week document with compiled shopping list by aisle/area of the grocery store. I am about to pull my hair out. I have used some of the ready-made bases and those get me there partially but I am getting lost in how to compile the weekly shopping list (ingredients compiled and labeled with recipe its associated with) and how to export the weekly meal plan in a separate document (recipe name, ingredients, instructions)
Anyway I have just hit a caffeine and knowledge wall any help or guidance how to pull this off would be much appreciated.
Here are two pics of the tables I have developed
Awesome thanks!
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Ok, so I played around a bit - I created a new table called “Calendar” which you would use to join a recipe onto a date. You can use it in the actual “Calendar” view to flesh out your meal plan for a week, month, etc…
That table pulls in the ingredients and preparation info from the recipe attached to a meal plan date. I created a grid view that filters to show only the recipes planned for the next week, and then I created a quick little Page Designer template that pulls from that filtered view, and combines all the info together into a “card” like view:
And which has printable output that comes out like this:
You can replicate these things into your main base as they are, and then continue to fiddle with them to your liking.
The main thing you were missing was a separate table for planning out your meals. This separate calendar table allows you to create a new “Calendar” item that links to a recipe, rather than having to change the date on a recipe for every new week. This way, all your historical data stays around too - you could even, if you felt so inclined, use this historical data to get statistics, such as how many times you’ve used each recipe. You could add all kids of other fun stuff too - rating the recipes; rating the recipes on a per meal basis instead of on a recipe basis to see if you rate the same recipe the same way each time, etc…
If you have questions about how it all works, ask away.
