S
Sandra
I am setting up a database on a volunteer basis for our
local Ronald McDonald House Charity to manage a list of
contacts and donors, similar to a mailing list. The
primary use of this database will be for mailing
brochures, invitations, and other material about our
fundraising events. The entities consist of Individuals,
Households, and Businesses. All of the information fields
are the same with each entity with the exception of
Businesses that eliminates the first name field but
contains an extra field for "Contact within Organization".
All the entities use the LastName/Org field as a primary
name identifier. My basic reason for this is so that my
overall report is strictly alphabetical rather than listed
by each table. In addition to the basic information, we
have check boxes to catagorize each entry, and to link
these entities to different funding campaigns (which can
be several for each entity) as a means of filtering the
list based upon the campaign we wish to promote.
Individuals and Businesses are fairly straight forward and
can be done in one table, but with Households I have a
dilemma. With multiple entities within a household who
may individually have a connection to the charity, I need
to uniquely identify each member of the household. I do
not like the idea of entering each name separately in the
table because of the pitfalls of data entry errors when
last names and addresses are duplicated, etc.
Should I create a table based upon a primary record "head
of household" so to speak (the one side of the
relationship), and then a linked table to contain any
other members of the same household which contains only
the information unique to that person (the many side of
the relationship)? Or, should I create a table containing
only the last name, address and pertinent data based on
location (the one side), and use another table to link all
the entities connected to that location (the many side)?
My second question is how to encorporate both of these
tables into a single report which would list out each
separate entity for a complete mailing list, and then how
to sort out all the records from both tables to compile
the filtered mailing lists for our various campaigns.
There are also times when I would want to combine the
household names in an address for an invitation, like Mr.
and Mrs. John Doe, or John and Mary Doe, rather than
sending separate mailings to each individual within the
household.
Any advice on the best way to structure this database
would be most appreciated. I am familiar with creating
complex forms for all this input, but I need a little help
with the structure, and in developing the right reports to
present the data.
And PS. 2 More questions: I have a form with a subform.
When I open the form the focus is in the first field of
the subform. I want the focus to be in the first field of
the main form. How do I change that? Also, how do I
replace the generic "999" with a default area code in a
phone number mask?
Many thanks, Sandra
local Ronald McDonald House Charity to manage a list of
contacts and donors, similar to a mailing list. The
primary use of this database will be for mailing
brochures, invitations, and other material about our
fundraising events. The entities consist of Individuals,
Households, and Businesses. All of the information fields
are the same with each entity with the exception of
Businesses that eliminates the first name field but
contains an extra field for "Contact within Organization".
All the entities use the LastName/Org field as a primary
name identifier. My basic reason for this is so that my
overall report is strictly alphabetical rather than listed
by each table. In addition to the basic information, we
have check boxes to catagorize each entry, and to link
these entities to different funding campaigns (which can
be several for each entity) as a means of filtering the
list based upon the campaign we wish to promote.
Individuals and Businesses are fairly straight forward and
can be done in one table, but with Households I have a
dilemma. With multiple entities within a household who
may individually have a connection to the charity, I need
to uniquely identify each member of the household. I do
not like the idea of entering each name separately in the
table because of the pitfalls of data entry errors when
last names and addresses are duplicated, etc.
Should I create a table based upon a primary record "head
of household" so to speak (the one side of the
relationship), and then a linked table to contain any
other members of the same household which contains only
the information unique to that person (the many side of
the relationship)? Or, should I create a table containing
only the last name, address and pertinent data based on
location (the one side), and use another table to link all
the entities connected to that location (the many side)?
My second question is how to encorporate both of these
tables into a single report which would list out each
separate entity for a complete mailing list, and then how
to sort out all the records from both tables to compile
the filtered mailing lists for our various campaigns.
There are also times when I would want to combine the
household names in an address for an invitation, like Mr.
and Mrs. John Doe, or John and Mary Doe, rather than
sending separate mailings to each individual within the
household.
Any advice on the best way to structure this database
would be most appreciated. I am familiar with creating
complex forms for all this input, but I need a little help
with the structure, and in developing the right reports to
present the data.
And PS. 2 More questions: I have a form with a subform.
When I open the form the focus is in the first field of
the subform. I want the focus to be in the first field of
the main form. How do I change that? Also, how do I
replace the generic "999" with a default area code in a
phone number mask?
Many thanks, Sandra