Trasnmittal Generation Database

[Denver]

Hello,

I am working in Document Control Dept. one of our major role is to generate
a transmittals to our clients and subcontractors for every documents we are
going to submit.

I have my acess 2003 database although not the featured one, I want that my
database can generate transmittals.

What I am going to accomplish first? currently we do the manual thing, we
have our transmittal form in word.doc format. we just Save As every time we
will generate one and log to our log sheet in excel format and print.

I want that by just a click the database will be the one to generate the
transmittals (like Transmittal Number, Date & etc.) save a soft copy to
Client's folder if it's for client and log the transmittal to our excel log
sheet. I want that access will do the logging to our log sheet in excel and
the same time save a soft copy or Save As by just a click and print rather
than doing it in manual which is very time consuming.

It is possible in access 2003? What I need to accoplish first? Do I need to
create a form with number of command buttons and pre-format the form?

Thanks anyway for any help, I appreciate it.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Hello,

I am working in Document Control Dept. one of our major role is to generate
a transmittals to our clients and subcontractors for every documents we are
going to submit.

I have my acess 2003 database although not the featured one, I want that my
database can generate transmittals.

What I am going to accomplish first? currently we do the manual thing, we
have our transmittal form in word.doc format. we just Save As every time we
will generate one and log to our log sheet in excel format and print.

I want that by just a click the database will be the one to generate the
transmittals (like Transmittal Number, Date & etc.) save a soft copy to
Client's folder if it's for client and log the transmittal to our excel log
sheet. I want that access will do the logging to our log sheet in excel and
the same time save a soft copy or Save As by just a click and print rather
than doing it in manual which is very time consuming.

It is possible in access 2003? What I need to accoplish first? Do I need to
create a form with number of command buttons and pre-format the form?

Thanks anyway for any help, I appreciate it.

I've looked at this a couple of times, and I'm not sure what to suggest, other
than that you should make a clearer distinction between data STORAGE (your
tables, the information about your clients and documents) and data
PRESENTATION (a transmittal letter, or email, or file export). They're
interdependent but they ARE different.

You should start by walking away from the computer, and getting a pad of
paper, a pencil, and a good eraser (or use the backs of old scrap paper that
you can just recycle when you write something you realize is wrong). Identify
all of the Entities - real-life things, people or events - about which you
need to know information. Write down what each Entity is, what information you
need to know about that entity, how the entities are related (e.g. "Each
Client may interact with zero, one or more Subcontractors, and each
Subcontractor may work with zero, one or more Clients"; "Each Document
pertains to one and only one Client, each Client will deal with many
Documents"; "Each Transmittal refers to one and only one Document, each
Document may have many Transmittals". Obviously *I* don't know your business
so these suggestions are probably wrong in content, but they're hopefully
helpful in structure!

Once you identify the Entities, you'll need one Table for each type of Entity;
the chunks of info about the entity - "Attributes" is the jargon term - will
be fields in the Table.

THEN, not before, you can start thinking about Forms for data entry, and
Reports for data transmittal and presentation.

I'm sure Access will be a lot better than Excel for you in the long run, but
be aware that there's a pretty steep learning curve; some of the concepts
require a different mindset. Once you get that mindset, you'll wonder how you
ever did it before!

Here's some resources that might help:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

Roger Carlson's tutorials, samples and tips:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/

A free tutorial written by Crystal:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

A video how-to series by Crystal:
http://www.YouTube.com/user/LearnAccessByCrystal

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials