Re: File Management

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In Reply to: File Management posted by Nicholas Barth on January 10, 2005 at 21:05:30:

: HELP! I'm totally confused about how Fund Manager files are supposed to be organized. The more I have tried to straighten out my existing files the more complex this matter has become. At the present time I seem to have moved all the investment files I have created into one portfolio called "Master Portfolio". Initially I thought "Master Portfolio" was lost, but then it reappeared.

: PLEASE PROVIDE STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARRANGING MY EXISTING INVESTMENT FILES INTO SEVERAL PORTFOLIOS FROM "MASTER PORTFOLIO". I simply don't understand the instructions which indicate "The path of investment files
: (*.dat) are stored relative to the portfolio file (*.mm4) itself. This allows you to safely move both investment files and portfolios to a new folder, as long as you keep their relative path the same. For example, if you have your portfolio and investment files in the same directory, you can move or rename that directory without affecting the relative path." PLEASE DEFINE (1) path, (2) relative to the portfolio file", (3) relative path.

: NB

Hi Nicholas,

It can be confusing, let me try to help. I'm going to assume you have
all your investment files already located in this folder:

C:\Program Files\Fund Manager\My_Data

That is the default folder for investment files. You may have them saved
anywhere, but hopefully you know where your investment files are located.

Let's start from scratch. Open up Fund Manager and do a "File / Close
Portfolio" or "File / Close All Investments". Now, you should have a blank
screen with just "File" and "Help" on the menu.

Now, use "File / Open Investment(s)..." and go select all the investments you
want in your first sub-portfolio. You didn't specify, but for this explanation,
I'll assume you want 2 sub-portfolios, one for a "Broker A", and one for "Fund Company B". You can use the Ctrl and Shift keys to select multiple investment
files, and open as many as you want at once. Once you've opened up all your
investment files for "Broker A" choose "View / Portfolio Editor...". You will
see that you have a single top level portfolio called "Master Portfolio" and
it contains all the investments you just opened. Now, let's create a sub-
portfolio called "Broker A". Right mouse click on Master Portfolio, and choose
"New Sub-Portfolio..." from the popup menu. Label it "Broker A", and hit OK.
You should now see on the left a Master Portfolio, and one sub-portfolio beneath
it called "Broker A". Now, let's move all those investments into this
new sub-portfolio. Select "Master Portfolio" on the left. This will
show you the sub-portfolio and all the investments on the right side of the
Portfolio Editor. Select all the investments on the right side, and then
click/drag them into the sub-portfolio "Broker A" on the left hand side of
the Portfolio Editor. Now, all those investments have been moved into "Broker A".
Now, we can create the "Fund Company A" portfolio. Right mouse click on "Master
Portfolio" and again choose "New Sub-Portfolio..." from the right mouse menu.
Assign the name "Fund Company A", and click OK. Now, select this new
sub-portfolio, and choose "File / Open Investment(s)...". Go select all
the investments that belong in the sub-portfolio "Fund Company A". Since you
had that sub-portfolio selected when you issued "Open Investment(s)..." all
the newly opened investments will go into that sub-portfolio. That's it, you've
created 2 sub-portfolios, and added all the investments into them. Now, let's
use the "File / Save Portfolio As..." menu command and assign a name to this
portfolio file.

Hopefully this example will help you set your own sub-portfolios up however you
want them.

You're done, and really don't have to understand anything about paths or how
portfolios store investments, but since you asked, I'll give these details.

A portfolio file has an extension of .mm4. A portfolio file stores information
on all your sub-portfolios. It also stores which investments belong in
which sub-portfolios. When it stores information on investments, it stores
the location of the filename for each investment. It doesn't necessarily
store the full path of the investment, but it stores the "relative path". A
"path" is the directory or folder for the location of your investment file. For
example, let's say you have an investment:

C:\Program Files\Fund Manager\My_Data\Intel.dat

The "path", or location of this investment, is:

C:\Program Files\Fund Manager\My_Data

Let's also say you have a portfolio file:

C:\Program Files\Fund Manager\My_Data\MyPort.mm4

So, in this example, both the investment file (*.dat) and the portfolio
file (*.mm4) are stored in the same directory, so they have the same path.
The "relative path" from the portfolio to the investment is:

.\Intel.dat

which means "in the same directory as me, look for a file called Intel.dat".
This is how portfolios remember where to look for an investment. The reason
for this is that if, for example, you decided to move all your data to:

D:\FM_Data

you could move everything from the old folder to this new folder, and
the portfolios would be able to find/open its investments because it would
look for Intel.dat in the same folder as the portfolio file, not back over
at the old location where the data was moved from. If portfolios stored
the absolute path then it would continue looking back over at:

C:\Program Files\Fund Manager\My_Data\Intel.dat

and you would have to manually fix this up, but since the investment location
is stored in a relative manner, it happens automatically.

Thanks,
Mark
--
Mark Beiley
Fund Manager, portfolio management software for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/00/XP/2003

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