Question How To Make A Database That Does A Thing

[librarybod]

Hello there

My name is librarybod: I'm a new member and (as you can probably tell from my name) I work in a library.
I have just started to use Access and am in a bit of a quandary and am hoping that I can find someone here kind enough to be able to help me (fingers crossed).

Ok: so this is my problem.

My library runs two weekly children's story-time events (one on a Monday and one on a Friday) and we need to keep a record of the names of all the children who attend.

At the moment the way we do this is with two separate documents:
- Document one is a "Print Out Sheet" that we print out each session which has the name of every child who attends with boxes along the side for them to tick their name off. This comes out on one page (front and back) and is a Word Document.
- Document two is a monstrosity of an Excel sheet called "Attendance Database." This has the names of the children running down the y axis (Kid A, Kid B, Kid C etc) and the dates of the story-time events running along the x axis (Date 1, Date 2, Date 3 etc).

Now I want to find a way to do away with having two separate sheets and instead just use an Access Database in the hopes of doing two things:

1. Setting things up so that I don't have to enter a new name twice (once on the Word Document and once on the Excel one): I mean - I realise that this doesn't seem like much: but sometimes we have ten new kids a session - so it can start to build up. So basically - I have a table (or several tables?) where the database stuff is collected and then I have a query or report where the names of everyone pops out with a box next to their names for me to tick.

2. Now lots of children come to the story-time events but eventually they grow up or move away or get bored and stop coming: and so (in the interests of space) we prune the Word document to make sure there aren't too many names on it. The way we do this at the moment is to go through the Excel document and (using colour-coding) work out who hasn't attended for the last 10 months: then go back to the Word document and take those names off. I'm hoping there's a way to do this automatically in Access: but I haven't yet worked out how to do it... Does anyone have any tips on how to make this happen?

I think that's the extent of it. If you think you can help with some sort of simple step-by-step guide as to how to set up an Access document that can do these two things then I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you.

 

[jdraw]

Workthrough this tutorial
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/Tutorials/Entity_Relationship.zip

 

[librarybod]

I clicked on the link and it says:
"This website has been blocked by Websense"
But thank you anyway.

If it helps to say this - I have read a few books on Access and looked online at a few help forums plus have spoken to some colleagues here at work and none of them have been able to describe a database that does the two things I want. I realise that this may just be me being a little bit slow (I admit I'm still fairly new to Access) but I think that this problem is a little bit advanced than just going through a tutorial - no?

 

[pr2-eugin]

The document link JD provided is attached with his post..

What you need is a perfectly normalized table.. This will include not just one table, but at the minimum from your description 3 tables (this is just a general idea, as the requirement is looked further this count might increase).. The main tables that are required at this very stage are..

tblStudents - Any information regarding the Children.
studID - PK
studName
studAddress
studDOB
etc.

tblStories - About Story line information.
storyID - PK
storyName
storyDescription
etc.

tblAttendanceLog - Everyday attendance record log
attLogID - PK
studID - FK
storyID - FK
attDate
etc.

Any student entering in the Library will go into the tblStudents.. Then any Story newly added will go into the tblStories.. When a Student enters the library for a New session that will go into the Attendance Log.

DISCLAIMER: This is just a idea on top of my head, others might have a better suggestion.. Although you might need to analyze this further.. Good Luck..

 

[jdraw]

The tutorial shows you step by step how to go from a description of your "business" to a series of tables with identified attributes and keys, and the relationships between the tables. The tutorial is about database and design.
Too many people think Access (or other software package) = database. Once you learn database design, table structure, normalization it doesn't matter which software you use to implement the database/application.

The tutorial won't make you expert, but it will show you the steps and concepts involved for whatever "business" and "database" you encounter.

Good luck. I 'm not familiar with websense, but I do know that Rogers Library is used and referenced by many people.