Re: Help with Ms-Access

"Jeffrey Davis" <jpm1121_at_gmail.com> wrote in message news:1236a00d-1707-4934-b7df-32b17bd2cd20_at_a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> I'm hoping that someone here can give me some assistance with a
> database I'm trying to set up. My skills in Access are fairly basic,
> and I'm trying to skill up, but some of the stuff is a little opaque.
>
> I'm trying to put some data I've got on paper into Access. Recently, I
> got together with some other people marketing organic produce and
> offered to do some marketing for us on a coop basis in the city.
>
> The idea I had was to have four marketing packages for coop members
> with different rates and services. For want of something better lets
> call them P1, P2, P3 & P4
>
> I'm thinking I'll need a table with the packages, and one listing the
> coop members with their details. In theory, a coop member might
> acquire another farm (either a new one or one from someone bailing
> out) and put it on a separate package.
>
> Which tables would have to have a relationship?
>
> I'm thinking the packages table containing the dat about each package
> would have to be related via a common field to the coop member table,
> and there would probably have to be a link between that and the farm
> table, through common fields -- maybe a unique ID in the coop member
> table could appear in the farm table and maybe the primary key from
> the package table could also appear in the farm table as a foreign
> key. But am I right?
>
> I'd also like to create a form that would list an individual coop
> member's details plus any packages they own and assume that all I'd
> need to do would be to ensure that there was a specified report for
> the form to call. Is that right? Is 'switchboard manager' the way to
> go here?
>
> I'd also like to create a macro to automatically open the database.
> I've had a bit of a look through Access and maybe I've missed it, but
> could someone point me in the right direction?
>
> Thanks in advance ...
>
> JD
>

I might be able to give you some help here.

Bob Badour has already asked the basic questions about "how many of this and how many of that". I don't need to repeat his questions in this regard.

He also asked whether you understood the concept of foreign key. I read your answer but I want to go a little deeper than the answer you gave.

Given a bunch of tables (a table about packages, a table about co-op members, a table about farms, etc.) Do you know how to use foreign keys to tie the whole bunch together?
Once you have put the foreign keys into to the tables, do you know how to use the "relationship tool" in MS Access to bind each foreign key to the primary key it references.

Do you know how to cause MS Access to enforce referential integrity? Do you know the consequences of doing this? Do you know the consequences of not doing this?

Do you know how to create a query that pulls data from more than one table, using either the graphical interface, or SQL? Do you know SQL? In particular, do you know what an INNER JOIN does? Do you know how to use the graphical interface to create a query that, when you switch from Design view to SQL view, shows you one or more INNER JOINS in the query?

There's a lot of overlap in the above questions. What I'm trying to get at is what you already know, and what you need to know. Received on Mon Dec 03 2007 - 15:29:04 CET