Fred said:
Sounds like you have Access pumping iron. Not just the 800k alone but that
it sounds like it represents 800K data entries / "transactions"
The BE is about 300 Mb in size. And yes those are 800K distinct
time keeping transactions for the past 8 years.. The company is in
the heavy industrial contracting business and in summer can have up to
800 employees. Despite the economic downturn this year one of their
divisions will have the busiest year ever. They also consume 25% of
the worlds supply of one particular product on behalf of their clients
in the Alberta oil sands and oil patch.
The time keeping transactions can consist of Regular Time, Overtime,
Double time, travel allowance, an hourly overhead charge, living
allowance, urine tests charged to the client, and so forth. There are
about 80 different payroll and a few material and equipment
categories.
Data captured, including the basics such as employee name, date and
RT, DT, OT, etc, also include area and activity in the industrial
plant, union pay rate agreement, pay grid classification (if the guy
is a foreman for the day he gets paid foreman for that day.) and a
whole bunch more.
The main data entry form is an unbound form which allows you to enter
up to three types of transactions per employee, that is RT, OT, DT,
etc. Then that form creates those transactions.
But that's not all. Some jobs have an overhead charge per hour added
to them. Other jobs have a daily living allowance. Other jobs have a
daily travel allowance if the guys have to drive more than an hour.
Other jobs have yet more quirks. So a single time keeping hourly
transaction can generate up to 5 or 6 individual records in the
transaction table.
But that's not all. One feature we have is the ability for the user
to click on a button, review the many transactions the just entered
time keeping transaction created and update/delete them individually
as required. Then they return to the form they just left and can keep
on going.
Then there's a form off to the side which shows the guys RT, OT and DT
hours for the week. So if he's on a 5x8 or 4x10 shift green means
he's in daily and weekly pre set standards, yellow and red mean out of
regular bounds. That is why is the guy getting paid 12 hours on RT
when it should be 10 on RT and 2 on OT. Or if more than 44 hours per
week then all time in excess of that is OT. With some DT for stat
holidays.
Guys belong on crews so at the end of the pay period the job
superintendents approve the biweekly hours reports.
The clients representatives daily sign off that the guys actually did
the work on site.
Umm, that's just a few of the highlights. I really need to do up 10
or 20 blog entries on the various techniques I used on that system to
make things user friendly and efficient.
I have to say that Jim, at the client and whom I've mentioned
occasionally in my blogs, is very good dealing with the users and
making sure that the forms make sense. But then I've also been
teaching him everything I know over the past ten years. <smile>
Tony
