Im an absolute beginner. Please help (1 Viewer)

[Johanvdw]

Hi everybody. I am a new member and would like to learn Access as we go on. I am really New to Access and need some help for everybody.

I am working in a dispatched department of a company and would like to make things easier for me. I need to make out delivery notes with all items that are dispatched. The database must collect all necessary information on the delivery note and the delivery note must increment by itself from a starting point I have to manually enter. Our Company has 2 additional subsidiaries and I must be able to select the correct subsidiary. The delivery note must also include a

1. Job number (I must be able to search from that)
2. Order number(also searchable)
3. Company that takes the item to deliver elsewhere

I don't know where to start. May I ask your help?

 

[Gasman]

I would start with the Northwind 2.0 Developer Edition
That would be a good basis to start from. Plus a few of the developers frequent here as well.
Read the article links as well.

Also look on Youtube. Lots of videos on Access there.

 

[GaP42]

If you are really new to access - are you really new to databases? Do you know how to design tables to minimize redundancy in your data? That step is independent of the database tool. While you might think about the tables to store and manage the data you also need to have a good roadmap of how you expect data to be obtained and reported: will you be looking to receive data from the order, the customer etc. as a file or will it be a manual transcription! or do you expect to see the order and customer data from the sales system? Will you need to validate the dispatch data against the order? Are you dispatching for the subsidiaries as well? Do you need to advise the sales system and customer that the order was only partially filled or is that the responsibility of the sales system?

 

[plog]

Data, always start with data. The process of setting up your tables and fields is called database normalization:

Database normalization - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Presumably some sort of system(s) currently exists for this. It might be in a few systems--an app supported by IT, some spreadsheets, a Word document, a website portal, etc. My suggestion is to get a pen and paper and document all the parts.

In database design there are objects and characteristics and in a database those become tables and fields. For example Vehicles are objects (and would be the table)-- engines, color, year are characteristics ( and become fields). Try thinking in those terms as you sketch out the data with pen and paper. For each table/object make a medium sized circle and label it with the object name, then inside that cirlce list all the fields/characteristics.

With what you have given us thus far you would have a circle for Jobs, a circle for Orders, a circle for Items and a circle for DeliveryCompanies. Then inside those circles list all the fields each of those should have (dates, contact names, etc.). It would be best to have open the actual current systems so that you capture fields/characterstics for every current piece of data the system(s) capture. Then draw lines between circles so you can identify how each circle should relate to the others.

Once that paper has fields for every piece of data you need then you can open up Access and start actually setting up your tables. Then either post the database back here so we can walk through it and make sure everything is correct. Then you can move on to the next step.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

Hi everybody. I am a new member and would like to learn Access as we go on. I am really New to Access and need some help for everybody.

I am working in a dispatched department of a company and would like to make things easier for me. I need to make out delivery notes with all items that are dispatched. The database must collect all necessary information on the delivery note and the delivery note must increment by itself from a starting point I have to manually enter. Our Company has 2 additional subsidiaries and I must be able to select the correct subsidiary. The delivery note must also include a

1. Job number (I must be able to search from that)
2. Order number(also searchable)
3. Company that takes the item to deliver elsewhere

I don't know where to start. May I ask your help?

I don't understand this. A sales processing control system ought to start with an order, and end with an invoice. Preparing a despatch note is part of this process, surely.

 

[Steve R.]

If you are really new to access - are you really new to databases? Do you know how to design tables to minimize redundancy in your data? That step is independent of the database tool. While you might think about the tables to store and manage the data you also need to have a good roadmap of how you expect data to be obtained and reported: will you be looking to receive data from the order, the customer etc. as a file or will it be a manual transcription! or do you expect to see the order and customer data from the sales system? Will you need to validate the dispatch data against the order? Are you dispatching for the subsidiaries as well? Do you need to advise the sales system and customer that the order was only partially filled or is that the responsibility of the sales system?

As an additional consideration; is MS Access the appropriate database to use? Also, how proficient are you at developing an interface? There are many open source databases available, but they require expertise in things such as HTML and PHP as minimal examples.