Could someone help me please

[Charli]

I am looking for some direction here and hoping for help.
First let me outline a couple of things. The non-profit organization I work
for is a homeowners association, and part of the associations common grounds
is three cabins to rent, a campground which includes three shelters, a
pavilion, boats for rent, a recreation hall and a pool.

Property owners, their families, and their guests are the only ones who can
use these facilities. The application that I want to create should be able
to book reservations for all of the above, keep track of payments,
confirmations, cancellations, and deposits, as well as check in and out
dates. I also need to be able to have it tell me that something is already
booked for a particular time/date if I am trying to book it again for someone
else. I need to be able to type in a guest or property owners name and find
out if that particular guest or property has had problems in the past and
have been banned from the facilities for abuse.

I would also like to be able to have a report to give to maintenance and
security each week, that tells them who is renting what and when. A report
that can tell me what our rental sales have been for each entity (cabins,
campground, shelters, pavilion, etc.)

So far, I have created the following tables and entered some of the data

Guests (those who will be using the facilities)
Property Owners (those who sponsor the guests)
Location (cabins, shelters, campground)
Unit (the different cabins, shelters, and camp sites)
Facility (pavilion, boats, pool, rec hall, that can be rented as well)
Reservation (to enter the reservation information in to)
Reservation Status (to see or update a reservation)

First can you tell me knowing the information as I outlined it above, are
there any other tables I might need, what forms would I need to create, and
what queries I will need to create and how I should proceed from there?

One last question, what are the uses for macros and modules, and how does
one go about creating them. So far, I will admit to be heavily dependent on
the wizards, but there don't seem to be any for these items.

I am a total newbie at Access, but I learn fast and with a little advice and
guidance I just know I can create the application I want.

Thanks for your help

Charli

 

[Rod Plastow]

Hi Charli,

I don't think that you will be overwhelmed by the rush to help you on this
one since you're really asking for help with a complete design and
implementation. OK you do start out by asking only for 'direction' so let's
start by paraphrasing some of the 'Gospel According To Rod.'

Before you start to code or create any Access forms and reports you need a
'paper' model that you can desk-check for fulfilling your requirements. I
place the word paper above in quotation marks since a core part of this model
is the database design and in fact Access provides you with good tools for
this design. The emphasis initially should be on the table keys and table
relationships, and not so much on the table content that can come later.

You seem to have made a good start in identifying the major entities
(tables) although I have some questions. Are Owners and Guests different in
the data that pertains to both? Can Owners not themselves also rent/hire
units and facilities? The name Location seems not to imply a geographical
location but a unit type? Are Units and Facilities sufficiently different to
justfy separate tables? There will be more such questions!

At the same time you need to list every function that the application must
perform and every report that the application must produce. In the latter
case you should indicate what data the report contains.

Now you can start the iterative process of refining that 'paper' model and
at the same time flesh out in more detail the content of the tables.

You also need to rough out a user dialogue - that is get a rough idea of
what forms you need and how they relate and how they support the functions.

Why don't you email me at

(e-mail address removed)

and we can take this a few steps further offline.

Regards,

Rod

 

[Rod Plastow]

Charli,

I suggest we close this thread as I see you have created a duplicate
elsewhere on this board. You're lucky; you've got more response that I
anticipated.

Regards,

Rod