Continous forms/Hardcoding arent/child links in copies of the same subform?

[nosferatu26]

On a form I am trying to use bounded subforms for people to fill out documentation info. There are two types of documents that the user will be filling in info for. For both of the types of documents, they will have to fill out the document number, title, and revision. These documents are tied back to a specific part that the user selects prior.

I have 3 tables that are storing all of this data. There is a parts table and a document type table. they are joined by a table called documentation which has the part id, document type id, and the rest of the fields mentioned above.

My issue was on the subform i initially had all of the fields filtering on the part id selected, and the subform was continuous. I was hoping that they can select one type of document from a combo box then fill out the fields and when they finished, repeat the process but for a different document.
That wouldnt work and I dont know why. when I went to create the 2nd document type it wouldnt let me edit it; it just stayed gray.

Now i am trying to create 2 copies of each subform side by side and hardcode each document type into each subform for the user to fill out.
This isnt working either. the subforms stay the same, not letting me add a new record after i fill out one.

My third approach would be eliminating the document type table and just adding an extra set of fields - one for each document into the documentation table. Since there are only 2 choices of documents it wouldnt be that bad but ideally I want to try to eliminate the redundancy.

If anyone can shed some light on the first two approaches for me or just help in general i would greatly appreciate it! I apologize for the long description or if some of it may have been confusing to read.

 

[sneuberg]

It's hard to determine why something doesn't work when it seems that it should. There could be lots of reasons. It would be helpful to see your database at least the part you are describing. Could you upload it?

 

[gemma-the-husky]

when you say "subform" - is this an actual embedded form within the master form? If so you should be able to declare master/child fields so that access can manage the link. In some cases, access still cannot do it automatically, and you need a different technique - eg, a subform for a continuous form

if the "subform" is a standalone form, then it isn't really a subform, and you need a different technique to reflect the linked items.

 

[nosferatu26]

Yes, it is a subform. There is a master form which is bound to the Parts table and then there is an embedded subform within that which is bound to the documentation table. The master and child links are initially set at the Part ID. I wanted to try to add more links by hardcoding the document type id in the master field and have 'document_type_id' in the corresponding child field, after part id, of course. so far ive had no luck.

I would upload the database, but the data is proprietary and it would take a good bit to create a clean version of it.

Thanks for the responses!