L
Lisa - NH
Hi. Bear with me, I'm going to be as detailed as I can be. I hope people are
willing to take the time to read and offer help.
I'm very new to Access. (I did buy the 2007 version.) I'm still using Excel
while getting everything set up in Access. I currently do membership for our
Legion Auxiliary and I maintain the membership rosters for the Legion & Sons
as I print labels each month for our newsletter. In Excel I had worksheets
for each group along with some specialized information I wanted to keep track
of. Only certain members receive the newsletter and our post office requires
they be sorted by zip code in 2 different boxes so I had those put into 2
seperate worksheets as well.
In setting up the Access file, I decided to keep the 3 groups in 3 seperate
tables...just because I didn't know what else to do. I have things set up a
little different already in that I have added information that wasn't in the
original setup. There are currently 19 fields (I won't give all the
details). We had someone who does a lot of work in Access 2003 (but not at
all familiar with the 2007 interface) look at the setup and he said that we
should put all 3 rosters into one table instead of 3 and then have colums at
the end of each that specify what membership group they are in. He said you
then setup a query so that you can view membership for just one group at a
time. Now he has offered to do all this work for me but I want to learn as
much as I can on my own before I "give up".
I did make all the fields match in each table even if that particular field
wasn't being used by the other group. Example for the Auxiliary we have a
birthdate field because we pay dues for members over a certain age with a
certain number of years.
Today I decided I was fairly happy with the setup so far and I decided to
put all information into a new file to play with. I put all 3 groups into
one table. I then looked at the Dummies book I bought and tried to setup a
query that would show all information for the Auxiliary only. I had created
fields for each group along with courtesy copies at the end of each group
before merging them into one. I have the yes/no field set with a check box.
I am thinking that's not the right option as I couldn't get the query to work
properly even with the book in front of me. It still showed all records.
So, what's the consensus? Should all 3 rosters (plus the courtesy copies)
be in one table or 4? Also I created another field for the mailing and set
that up as a yes/no with check boxes. Obviously I can't even think about
doing the mailing from Access yet.
It was also suggested that we put the member ID numbers into a seperate
table and that of course completely confused me. The suggestion was made
because we have a few people who are dual members of the Legion & Sons and a
few who are dual members of the Legion & Auxiliary.
Looking for any and all help & suggestions I can get. I just ask that you
keep in mind that I am not familiar with Access or databases in general.
Quite familiar with Excel though. The reason for the switch is that the post
wants a copy of this file on their computer and they suggested that Access
would be easier once setup.
Lisa
willing to take the time to read and offer help.
I'm very new to Access. (I did buy the 2007 version.) I'm still using Excel
while getting everything set up in Access. I currently do membership for our
Legion Auxiliary and I maintain the membership rosters for the Legion & Sons
as I print labels each month for our newsletter. In Excel I had worksheets
for each group along with some specialized information I wanted to keep track
of. Only certain members receive the newsletter and our post office requires
they be sorted by zip code in 2 different boxes so I had those put into 2
seperate worksheets as well.
In setting up the Access file, I decided to keep the 3 groups in 3 seperate
tables...just because I didn't know what else to do. I have things set up a
little different already in that I have added information that wasn't in the
original setup. There are currently 19 fields (I won't give all the
details). We had someone who does a lot of work in Access 2003 (but not at
all familiar with the 2007 interface) look at the setup and he said that we
should put all 3 rosters into one table instead of 3 and then have colums at
the end of each that specify what membership group they are in. He said you
then setup a query so that you can view membership for just one group at a
time. Now he has offered to do all this work for me but I want to learn as
much as I can on my own before I "give up".
I did make all the fields match in each table even if that particular field
wasn't being used by the other group. Example for the Auxiliary we have a
birthdate field because we pay dues for members over a certain age with a
certain number of years.
Today I decided I was fairly happy with the setup so far and I decided to
put all information into a new file to play with. I put all 3 groups into
one table. I then looked at the Dummies book I bought and tried to setup a
query that would show all information for the Auxiliary only. I had created
fields for each group along with courtesy copies at the end of each group
before merging them into one. I have the yes/no field set with a check box.
I am thinking that's not the right option as I couldn't get the query to work
properly even with the book in front of me. It still showed all records.
So, what's the consensus? Should all 3 rosters (plus the courtesy copies)
be in one table or 4? Also I created another field for the mailing and set
that up as a yes/no with check boxes. Obviously I can't even think about
doing the mailing from Access yet.
It was also suggested that we put the member ID numbers into a seperate
table and that of course completely confused me. The suggestion was made
because we have a few people who are dual members of the Legion & Sons and a
few who are dual members of the Legion & Auxiliary.
Looking for any and all help & suggestions I can get. I just ask that you
keep in mind that I am not familiar with Access or databases in general.
Quite familiar with Excel though. The reason for the switch is that the post
wants a copy of this file on their computer and they suggested that Access
would be easier once setup.
Lisa