Basic table design

[MikeLeBen]

Dear all,

I seem to be unable to get this right, and it always takes a lot of time to plan in advance, so rather than screwing it up and then hastily patching and fixing it, I would like to start off with the right foot this time.

I am designing an application that lets the user see several details of various partner universities (name, contacts, mailing addresses, deadlines to apply, application procedures and so forth) and I have set it up like this:

tblDettagli is still empty, and I'm not sure about its design either!

The corresponding form is this one:

Now I am a bit confused, as always, on how to set up the table part of all the remaining information I would like to show in the form (the form will basically collect data from almost all tables), namely mailing addresses and contact persons (name + e-mail address).

Any advice?

 

[jdraw]

What exactly is ID_Ateneo? I don't think this is a PK in each table.

You need PK in each table. You need FK for relationship in another table.
Can you describe the meaning of each table in a line or two?

 

[MikeLeBen]

ID_Ateneo is pk for each university's record on tblAtenei.

I'm not using pkeys on the other table, I only bothered using ID_Ateneo as a fk to link the data (as all entries an all different table will be related to a given university).

Am I supposed to use an autonumber anyway (I don't really see a reason)?

 

[jdraw]

Each table should have a PK that uniquely identifies each record in that table.

Here is a tutorial that helps with establishing Tables and designs; deals with Normalization and creating relationships. It may be useful to you.
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/Tutorials/Entity_Relationship.zip

I would have expected to see a tblUniversity somewhere in your diagram.

 

[MikeLeBen]

Thanks for the resource.

tblUniversity is how I would have called tblAtenei if I had given it an English name

I'll get back to you (or not, if that doc enlightens me sufficiently) once I'm done reading.

 

[jdraw]

Thanks for getting back. Obviously my Italian could use a lot of work.

I think the tutorial has some great concepts and the procedure/process is useful for most any database issue.
Good luck with your project.

 

[MikeLeBen]

This is proving a really good read, and I also like the style beside the contents, thanks for sharing!

On a side note: we also use "università" (closer to English), and it is also probably more common than ateneo. Ateneo, though, has a more ancient ring to it, as it is derived from Athena, the greek goddess of knowledge and wisdom.

 

[jdraw]

Thanks for the

"università" (closer to English), and it is also probably more common than ateneo.

I was really kidding about my Italian -- 2 words vino and pizza. And I bet someone will tell me pizza is English at that.

Glad you're liking the tutorial. There are others at this link
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/topic238.html