To automate a process

[Elmobram22]

Hi all,

I have been wondering whether it is possible to do something with a database I have. I make time sheets for staff members at work. I currently use a system of a bunch of word documents with a four week template of their hours on and I create a default word document template for the corresponding month. Each pay month runs from the 23rd of a month to the 22nd of the next. Each staff member works different shifts based on a four week rolling rota. All I currently do is determine the week and day of the 23rd of a month and copy and paste the information across. This works fine but can have human error and can take a fair bit of time.

In the mean time I have built a annual leave calculator which holds the 4 week rota within the database. I was wondering if there was a way to automate these word based time sheets in a report or something similar where I can tell the database what week and day the 23rd was and it would run the default shifts for that month off? maybe I am making this very unclear. If so let me know if you have no idea what I'm on about.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[MarkK]

Yes, this is absolutely possible. Not just possible, but automating this kind of process in much the way you describe is what Access is designed for.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

First, learn to use the SEARCH function that is in the dark blue ribbon that starts with "User CP" under the "Access World Forums > ..." navigation line - because that will be your friend in looking for keywords that you might need.

Second, do some "Google-braining" on the subject of the Access DateAdd and Format functions. DateAdd will let you add one month to a date uniformly. So, for example, your problem of computing the base-date of the xxxth of next month is a DateAdd. Then, the problem of determining the day of the week is solved in the Format function (among many other resources).

Third, the issue of manipulating a WORD document is actually not that tough once you get the hang of it. Look up topics like "Opening a WORD Application document" to start the manipulation. Then, a useful thing to know is that it is not quite but almost trivial to muck about in a WORD table, which is just based on a collection of rows that is in turn a collection of columns (and vice-versa is also true...). You can open your template, diddle with the tables, and then tell WORD to do a SaveAs with a different name for each person in your list.

 

[Elmobram22]

Thanks for the replies guys I shall indeed go through your three steps and report back on here when I get this thing moving.