Meetings

[Lusitan]

Hello.

I'm having trouble with this small db I've started to maintain records of meetings.

I have 2 tables (Participants and Meetings).

On Participants, I have:

Id_participant - auto number
Participant_Name - text

On Meetings, I have:

Id_Meeting - auto number
Meeting_Subject - text
Meeting_Date - Date/Time
Meeting_Time - Date/Time
Meeting_Place - Text
Meeting_body - Memo
Meeting_decisions - Memo

I'm having difficulty that the participants have their presence registered on any meeting using checkboxes on the form that I've built. I'm a little confused how to relate both tables, since I can't seem to find any common point between them.

I'm not sure if I'm making myself very clear, but I hope someone can help me.

Thank you very much.

 

[ColinEssex]

One participant can attend many meetings. You need a one-to-many join, put the participant_ID field in the meetings table and join on that.

Col

 

[ColinEssex]

Actually thinking about it, you may need to have a seperate table for participants who attended then link to the meetings table.

 

[Lusitan]

Actually thinking about it, you may need to have a seperate table for participants who attended then link to the meetings table.

I've tried both sugestions, and still I can't seem to get it to work.

The 1st, because I've tried to join those 2 and it comes up as indetermined in the relations.
The 2nd, because i don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not, because I don't know if I'm defining the fields correctly. My question is: on that 3rd table, both of the Ids are defined as plain number? Should they be both keys?

And where do I fit the combo box option? Should I create another field (Yes/no) and where? On wich table?

I'm sorry if I seem confused, but the truth is that I really am. I hope this makes sense to you.

Thank you for your reply.

 

[ColinEssex]

Post the DB then it'll be easier.

Col

 

[Mile-O]

Have a look at this.

You also only need one field for bothe date and time of the meeting.

 

[Lusitan]

Thank you, ColinEssex.

Here it is. I'm sorry if you find errors, because i had to translate it from Portuguese.

 

[Lusitan]

Have a look at this.

You also only need one field for bothe date and time of the meeting.

The date and the time being separated is just for question of being the easiest way to display both on reports. I think...

Thank you for your answer, Mile. I'll take a look at this.

 

[Mile-O]

The date and the time being separated is just for question of being the easiest way to display both on reports. I think..

It uses up double the space required and, for a meeting at 10:30 on 21st June 2004 you will have two fields with the values:


30-Dec-1899 10:30:00 and 21-Jun-2004 00:00:00

Now, having one field with 21-Jun-2004 10:30:00 seems more logical to me. If you want the time part then use the TimeValue function on the field; if you want the Date then use the DateValue on the field.

 

[Lusitan]

It uses up double the space required and, for a meeting at 10:30 on 21st June 2004 you will have two fields with the values:


30-Dec-1899 10:30:00 and 21-Jun-2004 00:00:00

Now, having one field with 21-Jun-2004 10:30:00 seems more logical to me. If you want the time part then use the TimeValue function on the field; if you want the Date then use the DateValue on the field.

Uhmmm... good thinkin'. I'll use that. Thanks.

 

[Lusitan]

Mile,

I've used the db you've posted and it partly does the trick, however I have a doubt. When I create a form to enter meetings, with a subform to enter participants, those participants stay attached to the 1st meeting. Also, I would like to know if there is any other way to choose participants. I mean, the participants could be entered on another form and written on a table.

Then, when entered a new meeting, I would be able to choose from that table that would contain all the participants and them check them as present on that meeting only.

hope that makes sense.

thank you

 

[Lusitan]

The relationship between people and meetings is MANY-to-MANY folks! It therefore requires a third table to implement the relationship. Download my many-to-many sample db from the sample db section to see how this relationship works.

Ok, so I've done this, but my doubts on the previous post still remain. I think that there is something missing, but I don't know what it is... Maybe it's better if I upload a more recent copy of the db, reflecting your advices. Do you think that would do any good?

Thanks

 

[Mile-O]

The relationship between people and meetings is MANY-to-MANY folks!

My upload has a many-to-many in place.

 

[Lusitan]

My upload has a many-to-many in place.

Yes, I've analized that and that's my understanding of it. I think the relationships part is covered. I only need to fix that display of participants and tie them to one particular meeting part.

Would it help if the Participants table be limited to a certain number of persons? I mean, that the participants of all the meetings would only be those inserted on the table, varying on that certain person of that group attending the meeting or not?

Thank you.

 

[Lusitan]

Sorry Mile, I didn't even look at your upload since it didn't say anything about fixing the relationship.

Lusitan, there were many things that needed to be fixed. Hopefully you can understand the changes.

I'll have to see it carefully, Pat. I'll let you know if I have any doubts.

Thank you very much.

 

[Lusitan]

Pat, thank you very much.

That was really it! And it wasn't really easy 8at least for my knowleges!!

Now, I have only 2 questions:

1 - When I press the button "Erase Meeting", it displays the message (roughly translated from Portuguese):

"Can't Eliminate or alter record because table 'tblMeetingParticipants' includes related records" - Dont' know why that occurs.


2 - How can I print a meeting record with the layout presented on the report Meeting? The purpose of this question is that I could include a button on the meetings entry form so that would print it immediatly after entering the data, but not the print function that is given of printing the entire window.

Thank you once again.

Lus

 

[Lusitan]

Thank you, Pat. I'll try it and I'll let you know of the results.

Cheers

 

[Lusitan]

Ok, Pat, I've figured out the cascading part.

However, I'm having dificulties linking the meetings form to that Meetings report. I'm creating a new report tmplate by draging the fields on design view form the form directly to the report and it looks fine, however, when I save it (as you said) and try to print, the layout comes out ok, but on the fields the message "Name!" appears. Am I doing something wrong?
Do I have to do a query on the meetings 1st?

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but I'm really a newbie to this and I'm not sure if what I'm doing here is the right thing or not.

Once again, thank you very much for your assistance.

 

[Lusitan]

Use the same query for the report as you use for the form and the same query for the subreport as you use for the subform. EXCEPT, in the query for the main report, add criteria that references the control with the key value on the form:

Where YourField = Forms!YourForm!YourField;

Pat, thank you for that explanation. That did the trick. However, I have one final question: On the report that I want to print, everything appears correctly, except the participants, because no matter how many participants are in the meeting, it only appears one. Can you help me on this one?

Thanks

 

[Lusitan]

Haven't figured the last one out and I've also noticed that the reports, when printed even that there is no data on it, come out with 3 pages. Any ideas?