Autofill from form within one table

[DEFTCenter]

Hi all,

Thank you in advance for your help on this!

I have been asked to create a database to help track participants through a training program where we keep records of each participant, their contact info, and several contact points where we meet with them in person or call over phone.

My organization wants to utilize forms to enter the data and would like for all of it to populate into one large table. They would also like to have an autofill option of where, if a participate suddenly withdraws from the program and we select "withdrawn" from a drop down menu on the form, all subsequent fields where data would have been entered for the different contact points will fill with n/a or a date signifying withdrawal.

Is this possible to do? And should we separate the data into separate fields?

Further if possible, how would we set up the autofill function?

Any help would be very much appreciated on this!

 

[plog]

Is this possible to do? And should we separate the data into separate fields?

If you want to use a database, might as well use a database properly. Access is not Excel Plus Forms. It's a database which is whole different animal.

Forms are the last part of building a database. First you set up your tables, then you work on reports/queries to get your data out of the system like you want, then finally you work on forms.

So, with that in mind, I suggest you read up on normalization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization). That's the process of properly setting up tables. Read up on that, work through a few tutorials, then give it a shot with your data. Then, fill out the relationship tool in Access and post a screenshot of it back here and we can help you get the structure right.

 

[DEFTCenter]

Thanks for the link and info!

I've attached an image of the relationships thus far. I currently only have tables and have not created any queries yet. Any feedback on the structure of the database would be very much appreciated.

Thank you again for your help!

 

[plog]

1. You shouldn't have tables with the same structure. Instead, all that data goes into the same table with a new field to differentiate them.

That means, all those Session tables need to go--you just need one. That table will then have a new field to determine which session each record is for, something like [SessionNumber].

Same for all those [Time X data collection tables].

2. Only use alphanumeric characters and underscores in table/field names. That means no spaces either. It makes coding and querying easier later on. So remove all those spaces (e.g. [Dyad ID]->[DyadID])

Give it another shot and post back a new screenshot. Also, if you could include a brief description of how your tables implement your description of your project that you made in your first post.