Adding to Tables

[diagostj]

I'm working out of a database containing all the voters in the County that I live in. For a political campaign, we're making phone calls using these lists to determine three things:

a - who they'd vote for
b - how strongly they feel
c - what they think is the major problem affecting the County

As we make calls, we write down codes on the paper. For instance, if Joe Smith says he'd vote for our candidate, the code would be "D" and if he's somewhat certain, the code would be "2" and if he thinks the biggest problem facing the County is fighting amongst local politicians, the code would be "L."

How would I input this into Access? We want to target specific mailings to people based on what issues they think are important, but I'm not really sure how to input these three new columns into the existing table. Also, the information we have is constantly being updated because calls are being made every night. We might get through fifty pages of calls, but just one town in the County can be as large as 2300 pages (or more!) How would I accomodate this?

Any suggestions would be really appreciated. Thanks!

 

[MScott821]

I would probably create a table with a one-to-many relationship to the contacts/voters table linked on the unique ID for the voter table.
My columns in the proposed reponse table might include the date of the call, the user, and the columns for your desired responses. Create lookup fields for each of the columns you want.
This way the users can choose the reponses from a drop down list and should the list need to change, you can just add to/modify the LU tables.

Creating a one-to-many table for reponses will also let you capture multiple responses if you call the voters more than once over time.

 

[diagostj]

That sounds like a decent idea... How would one go about creating a one-to-many table?

 

[jon98548]

Create a table that lists the choices to vote for. Create a table with choices for how strong they feel. Create a table with choices for the biggest problem, if you are going to have choices. You would only create that 3rd table if you are giving the voter a choice. If it is their opinion on whatever, don't create a table for it. Create a table with contact info: Name, Address, etc. Now create a table with an AutoID that pulls together these 3 tables. That is a start. If your 3rd question is a free form answer from the voter, you would enter that in this last table. My opinion based on what you say.

 

[jon98548]

Also, check out Pat's response here. db design