Linking databases

[Holly McWhat]

Ok this may be a stupid question but I'm still super new at this and have only been developing my skills for the last year.
Can I link one table to multiple front ends?
For example, I have 5 different databases for different Engineering/Quality functions. In each of these a new record is opened by an employee. So they each have an employee table in them right now.
But to me that breaks the rules of normalization.
So how do I deal with this? Can my one employee table feed the 5 different front ends?
I hope this question makes sense.

 

[pbaldy]

Not a stupid question, and sure, different front ends can connect to the same back end. A front end can connect to different back ends as well. You certainly don't want to try and maintain the employee data in more than one place.

 

[Holly McWhat]

So how do I go about linking the tables?
Like in my head it seems like it would be a many to many. But I'm not sure how to get the data back and forth.
I tried this morning and linked a front end to the employee back end and entered the data in the front end but it wasn't populating in the back end.
I tried to refresh the links and it still wasn't grabbing the data. Is there an extra step I'm missing?
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you I had some blissful time off.

 

[pbaldy]

You would go through the External Data/Link process for each different back end you wanted to link to. Make sure your form is bound to the appropriate linked table, not a local copy.

 

[Pat Hartman]

If you open the MSysObjects table, you can see the BE each table is linked to.