alktrigger
Aimless Extraordinaire
- Local time
- Yesterday, 21:08
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2009
- Messages
- 124
I just started to build my first database from scratch. I've spent time reading some e-books, but that has only gotten me so far. I'm using Access2007. I'll describe what I've done, and ask my questions at the end.
Background: On a daily basis I receive data from nearly 50 people. I dont care about what the data says, I just need to confirm that the data made it to my desk, and if not, why. On weekly I issue a report summarizing how many days of the week I received the data from each person, and any reasons why data wasn't received (i.e. weekly summary). Currently I update an excel sheet for a week, then at the end of the week I save the excel file to keep as a record and start another one next week.
Goal of the database: Allow me to update info on a day to day basis, and easily print a weekly summary.
Current Status: I've started creating and linking tables, but I realized that I may not be doing this in the best way. I currently have three main tables
Contacts: Used to keep track of the individuals who should be sending me data (this list can change multiple times throughout the year)
Received: This list contains three columns (ID, Contact, Received and DateReceived) where Contact refers to the table by that name, Received is a 3-option look-up (Yes/No/ "n/a"), and DateReceived is just that. My initial goal was to keep this as the main data storage table, where everyday an entry gets added for each contact.
KnownIssue: This table is used to store memo data-types for entries that have issues related to them, and actions taken to correct the issue.
Overall I feel I have a pretty generic and logical database that can be used to collect the data, and one that will be stable once I set up the front end navigation and froms.
My Question: Having set up the "Received" Table as I did, using a single entry per contact per day (50 entries/day = 350/wk = 1500/mo = 18000/yr), I feel that the table is going to get really crowded really quickly. The way the excel sheet was set up was the contacts were used as the rows, and dates as the columns, allowing for an easy cross-reference. But since I cant set up the data from one table to apply itself as the columns of another, it seems my only option is to create an immense amount of records. If that is the case, would I be best off making the Received table as slim(data wise) by breaking the lookup into 2 boolean columns (data received "y/n" and "data not available" y/n) or keeping it as it is?
Background: On a daily basis I receive data from nearly 50 people. I dont care about what the data says, I just need to confirm that the data made it to my desk, and if not, why. On weekly I issue a report summarizing how many days of the week I received the data from each person, and any reasons why data wasn't received (i.e. weekly summary). Currently I update an excel sheet for a week, then at the end of the week I save the excel file to keep as a record and start another one next week.
Goal of the database: Allow me to update info on a day to day basis, and easily print a weekly summary.
Current Status: I've started creating and linking tables, but I realized that I may not be doing this in the best way. I currently have three main tables
Contacts: Used to keep track of the individuals who should be sending me data (this list can change multiple times throughout the year)
Received: This list contains three columns (ID, Contact, Received and DateReceived) where Contact refers to the table by that name, Received is a 3-option look-up (Yes/No/ "n/a"), and DateReceived is just that. My initial goal was to keep this as the main data storage table, where everyday an entry gets added for each contact.
KnownIssue: This table is used to store memo data-types for entries that have issues related to them, and actions taken to correct the issue.
Overall I feel I have a pretty generic and logical database that can be used to collect the data, and one that will be stable once I set up the front end navigation and froms.
My Question: Having set up the "Received" Table as I did, using a single entry per contact per day (50 entries/day = 350/wk = 1500/mo = 18000/yr), I feel that the table is going to get really crowded really quickly. The way the excel sheet was set up was the contacts were used as the rows, and dates as the columns, allowing for an easy cross-reference. But since I cant set up the data from one table to apply itself as the columns of another, it seems my only option is to create an immense amount of records. If that is the case, would I be best off making the Received table as slim(data wise) by breaking the lookup into 2 boolean columns (data received "y/n" and "data not available" y/n) or keeping it as it is?
