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- Jul 9, 2003
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Hi June7.Nothing you have provided, including latest post, counters viewpoint that this db is likely not optimized. And unless you share it for review, we can hardly be swayed. However, since it seems you are set on continuing with this design, I wish you luck.
Did you at least consider recommendation for splitting? Certainly should if you plan on maintaining and providing other users with updates.
Thanks Doc_Man, the forms will allow my family members to enter the data that they will need to save money and protect their health. I am sure of that because I have stored information from some of the best minds in the world and several government agencies in the database already.You show us a switchboard or dispatcher form that you can use to select reports or forms or both. Doesn't matter what they pull up, but it DOES matter what those things in turn pull up for you and from what those things pull something up. From your display in post #17, if those items are reports that track or forms that operate by filtering a category table, that could be perfectly OK. Which is why I'm not pointing fingers at the moment.
However, if those lower-level options represent a form or report based on separate and distinct tables for each thing you are tracking, ...
a) Your Grocery Bills selection is DEFINITELY denormalized if you have tables for each grocery. That should be 1 and only one table for that with the grocery name or ID or code as a field.
b) Your Insurance Bills represents another likely denormalized area that would need serious normalization.
c) I suspect the Diseases category has the same susceptibility.
Like I said, you showed us something that could be quite reasonable. But you didn't show us enough for us to know the difference between totally normal and totally outrageous. So with a little more insight, we might be able to smooth out that "itch" that each of us feels in the presence of a vaguely suspicious project description.
Plog, this is like building an entire city for people who have lived in the desert all of their lives. The first thing that I usually do is paste two pictures into a form, and then I add text for the form to read aloud. A family member tells me what the form will say.Yeah, when building a house just slop some concrete in a hole, throw in some rebar and build on top of it. In a year or two--after you've done the important things like paint the 4th bedroom the proper color of eggshell and chosen the right cabinet fixtures for the third floor bathroom you can always go back and fix the lesser issues like the foundation.
Pete, when I say that the database will have twice as many tables/forms/reports next year, it means that I am constantly finding new information to add to the database. When I started back in January the only domains that I considered were financial ones. I read lots about financial systems such as Quicken, to understand things that I could put in the database. A friend suggested that I subscribe to Quicken but no, I needed graphics and speech in my system. I have a copy of Microsoft Money somewhere, but do you think I use it?I do not know what world you are in, but I can guarantee that everyone that knows anything about databases does not visit that world.
Being proud of the excessive amount of non-normalized data tables is like walking into a hoarders home and they are proud that somewhere laying on the floor is every piece of junk mail they have ever received. When you say in the next year you will have more tables, is a definite sign that the database is designed incorrectly. Databases do not grow in tables as data grows. They grow in records.
But good luck on this. Sounds horribly painful.
Pete, just because there are several forms and reports for grocery purchases, that does not mean that there are multiple tables for grocery stores. This is a situation where I created a form for the Walmart to the west of my house, the King Soopers to the north, and the Safeway to the south, plus the Costco down the street. They are different kinds of stores and I shop them in different ways. Some deliver groceries and some don't. So a form doesn't necessarily mean what you think. The different forms have different pictures and they calculate total costs differently.Looks to me that you could support that information with 10 or 15 tables/child tables (20 max). What are the other 430 doing?
Thanks arnelgp. That could come in handy with a different group of users. I am sure none of my family will ever use two databases. Thanks for sharing.You can also do the Deleting or records from another database.
open form frmTableList from the demo and select the external db.
then select which tables to delete records from (note the Listbox
will Not Contain linked Excel/text file and the DB to open is not
encrypted with password).
the demo was made in A2021.
the forms will allow my family members to enter the data that they will need to save money and protect their health. I am sure of that because I have stored information from some of the best minds in the world and several government agencies in the database already.
Pete, in my world, this is a very small database. Wait until I get to year two. 450 tables is nothing for me to have in an Accdb file. This is just the start of an application that could have thousands of tables when it is done.
Normalization to DKNF is something that I won't worry about until later. I am not worrying about it yet.
Feel free to build one. This task is not sufficiently generic enough that you are likely to find an example. The concept is flawed also since it relies on the user knowing ahead of time what is sensitive and marking it so and since you have hundreds of tables and corresponding forms, you have a lot of modifications to make to the application. Your image in #17 is about as terrifying as it gets. I'm sure many people have tried to explain normalization to you but they have failed. Sure hope no new grocery store opens near you.I want a tool that will run through all of the tables and delete all records where "Is Sensitive" is true. Doing this in 50 forms won't be hard for me, but it could be a lot of work for someone who knows nothing about Access.
Not sure I would be proud of that since it highlights your lack of understanding of something very basic.Later one of my Access files grew to be more than 4,000 forms and more than 4,000 reports.
Yes and thanks AccessBlaster. I have only developed about four Access databases in my entire life. Unlike most other Access users, I don't code and I structure tables (normalize) in my head. I know very little about financial and medical sciences. I didn't go to college and study either of those subjects. That all says that I am making mistakes left and right. But I figure that it is better than doing nothing in retirement.This is a fascinating read. It reminds me of the mistakes I made early on with my first databases. Those were frustrating times, trying to apply best practices to unorthodox designs. Man, that was tough.