Maybe I need to hire someone?

[vjacobs]

I don't consider myself an uneducated person, but my experience with databases have been a simple tables with queries and reports.

My new place of employment wants me to design a database that I think I am way over my head on, even though I have looked at the posts, and been through two of the textbooks on the subject.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not putting this information out there and expecting someone to do the work for me. I simply need to know if I need to hire someone to help me with this.

I work at a factory and we have 5 stages of a product, ie order, assembly, testing, shipping. We want to track the progress of each stage, so I created one table, I will call it TRACKING, to store all the information for all stages. I then created forms so the owner of each stage can enter their information for that stage. My problem is, I have an excel file that I want to import into a separate table, that has information the TRACKING table needs, such as Order Number, Customer Name, etc. I do not know how to do a relationship between the two, as some of the fields are empty and when I try to create a unique field it says it cannot have a null value.

I would be more than happy to share what I have if someone wants to look at it, but do not feel comfortable just putting it out there. Like I said, please let me know if I am over my head. I ama beginner to a of this stuff, so please speak beginner.

Thanks much!
Vivi

 

[spikepl]

I think you need to decide what YOU want, and how much time, or alternatively money, you wish to spend. There is no such thing as "over my head" - it's a question of available time and perhaps stamina

A communal effort supported by AWF will get you there, but slowly. At the end you have a working app, and the experience to make changes and build new apps.

If you pay someone to do the lot, you'll have it soon, but are perhaps forced to call for help again, when changes are needed, and change requests do always seem to materialise, once an app is running.

You can choose a middle path - call for pointers on AWF, get paid support to do bits and pieces that you feel you cannot handle, but understand after the solution was delivered. That would be messy and neither quick nor cheap, but might get you to the end quicker that a solo run. But not necessarily cheaer than simply contracting the whole job out.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I sent you a pm, but just to reinforce one point

you need to spend a lot of time on analysis of this

- understand exactly what is required, get the spec of the system agreed, get a budget agreed, if necessary. if this is as big as it sounds, speccing the system may well take a month or more, especially if you are trying to do other stuff at the same time.

out of interest - why you - do you have relevant experience?

one important point. access is NOT excel. it is far easier to use when done well - but much harder to understand and construct a database compared with a spreadsheet.

being competent with excel may actually be a drawback, if you are new to access. spreadsheet thinking is an easy mistake to make, and is generally the wrong way to go.

 

[vjacobs]

I would like to be able to do it myself, for as you said, if someone else does it I will have the completed project but I will not understand how it was designed or how to make changes in the future. With that said, where do you suggest I start?

 

[vjacobs]

I have some experience with access, that is the only reason "why me?" I understand the diffrence between Excel and Access, and prefer Access, but information I need will need to be imported from an Excel file. This database is not something that is for an entire factory, but rather something to be able to pull up to see where a project is. Right now the information is on a white board.

 

[spikepl]

I understand that you want to do it yourself, but nothing is free. Your time is presumably paid for too. And then there is the need and perhaps a timescale. There is not enough information provided here.

The normal business procedure would be to make a Business Case: what are the options, what is the cost of each and what is the benefit of each, and how much is that benefit worth to your organisation. Always including the do-nothing option (this one has costs and benefits - or disbenefits - too). Then a qualified decision can be made as to how to proceed.

Many developers are eager to learn and get into projects that drag on and on, and that should simply not exist from the business viewpoint. I am not accusing your ideas to be that, but pointing out that this is what does happen occasionally.

 

[AccessMSSQL]

It sounds like you already got so far in creating your tracking table. Does your spreadsheet have null values in the customer fields? Or just null values in general.

Watch this video on how to set up table relationships in access. Good place to start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IarzvwTijwk

This may help.

Here is another link on how to work with Excel and Access:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/a...ata-between-access-and-excel-HP001095095.aspx

hope this helps you! Good luck. If you got as far as you did already you should be fine with a little research.

 

[lweb]

We may be in a similar boat as I don't know what I'm doing teaching myself Access. The small architectural company I work for is willing to let me learn/teach myself since I have the understanding of how our company does business and what we need from a database. I am willing to learn but I need help and don't know where to look! I've asked just about everyone I know if they know of anyone that creates databases, not just enters data into one. They all say they will ask around at work and nothing happens. I know everyone is busy and I don't like to bother people but is there really no one to go to with a few questions here and there that might get me over the hump?!

Yes I have read up on normalization but confuse myself. Right now I'm confused with trying to set up tables for contacts where the "business" is a city with several departments. There would be several people from the same city, different departments. Some cities use the same physical address for all of the departments and others have different addresses for each department. We might have 5 contacts in Parks & Rec, 2 in the Bldg Dept, 1 in Community Services and 2 in City Administration departments of City X. Then there are businesses that have multiple locations: ABC Company at 5501 NW 70th Ave, Bldg A-20 or Bld W41 or Bldg Q all in the same city, then 2245 West Street, City C.

(Hopefully this is proper form) Here is what I had previously:
tblPeople
PeopleID (PK, autonumber)
FirstName
LastName
CompanyID

tblCompany
CompanyID (PK, autonumber)
CoName (example: City of X)
CoStreet (example: Parks & Rec Dept)
CoStreet2 (example: 123 Main Street)
CoCity
CoState
CoZip
PeopleID (FK)

Do I need to hire a tutor or a database developer? Maybe I need to go to school for a Database Specialist certificate? (The thought of COBOL, SQL, Oracle and programming scares me.)

Help....Thanks!

 

[jdraw]

As has been said, you have to decide what exactly you want to do. Here are some links that may help

General Access
http://www.accessmvp.com/strive4peace/

Database Design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVq8M5DBkk Logical data modeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGMwuOtRfqU Candidate key

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiB-BKCzS_I Normalization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ47btpjAhA Normalization example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Wg2fZENK0 1st Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vji0pfliHZI 2nd Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-QR7t-kMo 3rd Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1GaaGHHAqM E_R Diagramming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXAGQ8vmhCY ERD Part 2

The first few topics are well worth the read.

http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/topic238.html