field types and reports

[laura]

I'm a new access user and I am making a database that
will be a mailing address database as well as track
conference attendance (15 conferences total). The
problem I'm having is how to do this second part. I
don't know what kind of field to put in the form for
this, so that when I create a report I can find out
conference attendence from different regions, etc. right
now when I create a report it shows me marks for the
people who have attended, but what I want is a total
number. I realize this is probably a question for
reports newsgroup, but my problem seems to be stemming
with my design.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Laura

You are asking the right group (tablesdbdesign) but the wrong questions.
Instead of focusing on your forms and how the data will be displayed, use
Access' strengths as a relational database to normalize the underlying data
structure first. Having this part correct will make using Access to do the
rest quite a bit easier.

Just a guess, but it sounds like you have a many-to-many relationship:
individuals, conferences, and attendees (or some such 'naming'). Each of
these needs to be a table on its own. Get the data down, then start on the
forms.