Hi all, newbie here so forgive the nature of my post, I've been searching around here all day and I'm a bit lost with a database.
Basically I'm fairly new to databases and I'm sat here armed with a fairly unhelpful book throwing myself in at the deep end. Sorry for the wordy post but if anyone who knows what they're doing could lend a hand I'd be eternally grateful.
I'm making a database for my girlfreind which records all required details of her work clients.
The database is for storing information relating to people my girlfreind helps with charitable work. In this there's all sorts of things covered from general information to basic details of the clients income and details of their utility bills and so on.
Basically the concept of relationships I've totally forgotten, always handy in a relational db.
1)
Ok, in each of the tables I've got the clients name and primary key (in this case their national ID number), and I've made a form for each of them to input the data. This seemed right before, but it doesn't now. She doesn't want one huge form to fill in so how can I get the name and NI number to automatically update the next form in the series? I'd assumed that as there's a chance one form may be required to be filled out and another might not be required, that it'd be good to have it featuring on each of them just in case.
2)
I want to make it so when you want to add details of a new client, it takes you through each of the forms in sequence, sort of like creating a new portfolio or profile from half a dozen forms. Is there an easy way to do this? I can't picture a link between the forms and switchboard / menu that would do this.
3) Relationships.
This is the bit I'm really stuck on at the minute. Textbook newbie I know, but I just can't see how my tables would be relational, which makes me think I've messed up the basic design.
Basically from the notes I've been given details of each of the clients utility bills. For each of this utilities there's a few things that need filling in, which are the same for the majority of the utilities. Access is asking me to sort relationships when I go to make a form which gives the list of all these utilities on one page. But I really can't see where or why a relationship would be valid on any of them.
I can see why a product code would be related to a supplier, but none of these are directly related to eachother that I can see, the only common denomonator being that they're relating to one person.
That's it for now, but if anyone who knows access well I'd be eternally grateful if someone would take a look at what I've done so far and let me know whether it's ok or if there's any glaring errors or point and laugh at where it could be improved etc, as it's something I've basically learned as I've gone along from scratch in a short space of time, so I'm not brimming with confidence. I can email it along with the notes, and it's basic as they come so doesn't have anything in like macros and so on. Looks kinda pretty so far though, but I'm sure anyone who half knows what they're doing will look at it in horror.
I've attactched a zip file with my work so far in, so it's not finished, but I figured it best to find out it's a hideous mess at this stage rather than doing the whole database then finding out. There's an excel spreadsheet in there I was given to use to give me some pointers as to what she wants incorperating.
Great fun learning about access, but it's a big learning curve and I've got a feeling I've taken the wrong
approach with mine. 
Thanks in advance to anyone who's willing to shed some light, I'm really enjoying learning about access and databases as a whole, but in doing so this way I'm confused.
Stu
Basically I'm fairly new to databases and I'm sat here armed with a fairly unhelpful book throwing myself in at the deep end. Sorry for the wordy post but if anyone who knows what they're doing could lend a hand I'd be eternally grateful.
I'm making a database for my girlfreind which records all required details of her work clients.
The database is for storing information relating to people my girlfreind helps with charitable work. In this there's all sorts of things covered from general information to basic details of the clients income and details of their utility bills and so on.
Basically the concept of relationships I've totally forgotten, always handy in a relational db.
1)
Ok, in each of the tables I've got the clients name and primary key (in this case their national ID number), and I've made a form for each of them to input the data. This seemed right before, but it doesn't now. She doesn't want one huge form to fill in so how can I get the name and NI number to automatically update the next form in the series? I'd assumed that as there's a chance one form may be required to be filled out and another might not be required, that it'd be good to have it featuring on each of them just in case.
2)
I want to make it so when you want to add details of a new client, it takes you through each of the forms in sequence, sort of like creating a new portfolio or profile from half a dozen forms. Is there an easy way to do this? I can't picture a link between the forms and switchboard / menu that would do this.
3) Relationships.
This is the bit I'm really stuck on at the minute. Textbook newbie I know, but I just can't see how my tables would be relational, which makes me think I've messed up the basic design.
Basically from the notes I've been given details of each of the clients utility bills. For each of this utilities there's a few things that need filling in, which are the same for the majority of the utilities. Access is asking me to sort relationships when I go to make a form which gives the list of all these utilities on one page. But I really can't see where or why a relationship would be valid on any of them.
I can see why a product code would be related to a supplier, but none of these are directly related to eachother that I can see, the only common denomonator being that they're relating to one person.
That's it for now, but if anyone who knows access well I'd be eternally grateful if someone would take a look at what I've done so far and let me know whether it's ok or if there's any glaring errors or point and laugh at where it could be improved etc, as it's something I've basically learned as I've gone along from scratch in a short space of time, so I'm not brimming with confidence. I can email it along with the notes, and it's basic as they come so doesn't have anything in like macros and so on. Looks kinda pretty so far though, but I'm sure anyone who half knows what they're doing will look at it in horror.
I've attactched a zip file with my work so far in, so it's not finished, but I figured it best to find out it's a hideous mess at this stage rather than doing the whole database then finding out.
There's an excel spreadsheet in there I was given to use to give me some pointers as to what she wants incorperating. Great fun learning about access, but it's a big learning curve and I've got a feeling I've taken the wrong
approach with mine. Thanks in advance to anyone who's willing to shed some light, I'm really enjoying learning about access and databases as a whole, but in doing so this way I'm confused.
Stu
)
