I run a non-profit children's camp in Maine. I need to create a facilities
inventory of buildings. I need to cross-reference for preventative
maintenance schedules. I would like to select a bldg in a table of contents
or a category (roofs, elec, etc). Is Access the package I need? Peter
As Larry says, Access would be an excellent tool for this job.
However... Access is a complex program with a rather steep learning
curve; and you won't find a preventative maintenance template anywhere
unless you're really lucky. You'll need to do some reading about
relational database design to get off to a good start.
Thumbnail lesson:
- Start with the Tables. They're the foundation. You'll need a table
for each type of Entity - real-life person, thing, or event. A
Building is an entity; a Category is a different entity; an act of
maintenance (e.g. "Reshingling Roof") is another entity. Each Entity
has "attributes" - unique chunks of information about that entity. For
example, a Maintenance event will have a date, probably an indication
of who did the work, a comments field, and links to the Buildings
table (to identify which building was worked on) and another link to
the Category table (to identify what was done).
- Then work on Queries: they'll be the core of your application.
Queries combine data from different tables, sort data, select which
fields and which records you want to see, and so on.
- Next come Forms: these are the tools used for viewing, entering, and
editing data in the Tables (usually using a Query as an intermediary).
- Reports would be used for any information you need printed; reports
are essentially always based on Queries joining two or more tables.
- If needed, or if you want to get beyond the (already quite capable)
"out of the box" capabilities of Access, you can write VBA code in
Modules.
We'll be glad to help should you decide to tackle this project.
John W. Vinson[MVP]
