Grouping Multiple names into department categories

[Robb58]

Hi, I hope someone out there can shed some light

I have a database which has a field for employees names but I've now been asked to provide an extra field to show which of 6 departments the employees fall into. What's the best way to go about doing this to automatically assign new and existing employee records to the relevant Department?

 

[isladogs]

If you have the data accessible somewhere else, it can be entered via an update query.
Otherwise it's manual entry.

 

[Robb58]

Thanks for the speedy response I fear I might have to do it manually as some of the names have been misspelt in some of the records

 

[arnelgp]

is there anyway in the table
you can distinguish each employee
by their department? do they
have ID's that starts or ends
with certain characters that
can be related to their depts?

if not then you'll have to manually
enter them.

 

[isladogs]

Following on from arnel's comment, your table and the source data should both have an ID field that you can use to match the data.
If not it needs to be added anyway.

Suggest whist doing this you consider adding any other fields you might need e.g. First name, last name as separate fields, gender, dob, start date etc.

If your source data is correct and you have many records, it might be quicker to create a new database, import the data then import all other items from the original database

 

[Robb58]

Thanks again for the assistance arnelgp and ridders. Unfortunately the database has been completed by several people some of whom have not been as rigorous as others in adding the info so for now I'm going to have to go manual. :banghead:
I've added another field with a dropdown box and made it a required field so hopefully future records will be slightly easier to sort!

 

[Mark_]

Optional would be to create a formatted spread sheet that you send to each department requesting they update. Then you could import the spreadsheets. If you have less than a thousand employees to deal with this shouldn't be too big of a problem. Simply send the entire set (limit on personal info, only that which you need to distinguish one employee from another) to each department and have them update their employees information.

This should also help catch those who are no longer with the company, those who have data that needs to be updated, and those who in some way fall into more than one department.