I see others have asked about this error, but being such a novice, I'm still not able to figure out why it's happening in this project. Hoping someone can take a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong...
In 'formEmployeeFile', the data in combobox 'cboPosition' cannot be modified. I receive the error, "Control cannot be edited; it's bound to AutoNumber field 'PositionCID'."
Upon opening the employee file in formEmployeeFile, the combobox 'cboPosition' should display the 'PositionName' assigned to that employee. The drop-down list should contain all of the possible positions, which are contained in 'tablePositionCatalog'. I've just barely figured out a way to do both, but I'm still stuck with the error I described above.
This project is far from finished, and this is literally my first attempt at a database, so please forgive its rough shape! Oh, and though it may look real, the data (e.g. employee names, phone numbers) currently inside this file is fake.
Employee Database
With current structure of complex RecordSource, cboPosition should just be a textbox bound to PositionName field. This textbox properties should be Locked Yes and TabStop No to prevent editing.
This is peril of having exact same field name in multiple tables. Your queries carry PositionCID autonumber field forward and that is field you try to bind to and edit. Instead you need PositionCID foreign key field from tableEmployeePositions. Have to modify queries.
If tableEmployees and tableEmployeePositions have a 1-to-1 relationship, should just be 1 table. A 1-to-1 relationship is an exception to 1 form for 1 table editing but this relationship is rarely needed. You could just simplify and combine the tables - unless you need to track history of employee positions. In which case you could not include tableEmployeePositions in form RecordSource since there could be multiple records for each employee and this would be a many-to-many relationship.
Related
I am struggling with an issue in designing my Access database.
I am a caregiver, and part of my job is taking clients out into the community. I am attempting to build a catalog of outings to help the employees at our company come up with and store ideas for these. I want to store information for each of up to 5 types of events that clients can do at a location. That information includes the event type, when it runs and doesn't, and how much it'll cost, all of which would be user-selectable. (Separately in the same table, I want to include contact information and information that helps the user search for event locations, such as the ZIP code.) I have attempted to normalize the database by spreading event information across fields in the main table, linked to lookup tables. I am aware that Access has a limit of 32 relationships per table.
To help staff find event types, I am trying to set up a method for categorizing them. That requires setting up nested lookup tables, as shown in the first picture.
If I understand correctly, the additional "copies" of those lookup tables are aliases. When I save the setup for the relationships between those aliased lookup tables, close the Relationships window, and open it again, I find Access has changed them, as shown in the second picture. This happens whether I delete the lookup table information for each field in Datasheet View. I don't understand why it does this or how to fix it.
To answer your question:
In the object browser I see that you have only one table: t_OutingType. Therefore, the "tables" t_OutingType_2, t_OutingType_3 are just aliases; "pointers" to the same table (like a shortcut to a document). When you save the relationships and close the window, the relationship information is written to the metadata of the database. When you re-open the Relationships window Access re-builds the relationship diagram from the metadata, and it does not include the redundant aliases.
Additional advice:
Whenever you find yourself duplicating columns in a table, e.g., Event_1, Event_2, ... a little voice in your head should start shouting "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Imagine if you want to search the database for events that fall on a certain date. With the table layout described above you would need to ...
SELECT ... WHERE EventDate_1 = [theDate] OR EventDate_2 = [theDate] OR EventDate_3 = [theDate] ...
It's almost always better to split the Event information into a separate child table and maintain an association table between the child table and its parent.
I have learned more, and was compelled to find the solutions, mind changed.
PS dear experts, your help is appreciated in the time-saving nature of having forums and discussion in the first place, and also is mined for usefulness, not street cred. get helping or get off. The time I wasted reading posts where the answer was "I don't understand what you are trying to do..." and then questioning the OP with animus or incredulity, or suggesting some unrelated answer further confusing issues, is seemingly the problem with the world these days, if you want to help, help
Original Post:
Ok so as per the comments, thanks to ANYONE who volunteers any help with this problem.
I have a table and relationship design problem.
I have a table with a pk auto and I want to have a related table with a related column incrementally numbered that updates every time new data is entered in the form that is bound to it. It needs to update the related rows in the autonumbered table's key.
---the answer was to join the table on the autonumbered field.
The autonumber of the first table (main recordsource) is just an ID. I think I need two Primary Keys as I need to update the related record with that number in the entry form and move to NextRec but update the pk in the main table and move to NewRec , how do I join (see jpg image)?
I want enter results and update that existing record but update the adjoining pk so that a new record is created in the main table.
Tourney
more in depth:
From yours
My desired form
note that the calculation table feeds the upcoming games table, where a query shows the players recent results. I would like to split the upcoming results to show the players' recent game history, the second tab I would like to enter either one result or many results at a time. I hope I am clearer. You can see why I have had a challenge. See my form though. The recordsource is the upcominggames table and the data entry form is for input (ENTER GAME DATA)
-----the answer to this was an update query (a separate form) and then requery the statistics form to show the new matchups that were entered.
As from the comments, this is what I'm thinking of when I read your description:
Since the UpcomingGames will be entered first and exactly one GameResult can be entered per UpcomingGame, this will be a 1:1 relationship. As the name Upcoming says: The Upcoming data has to be entered before the Result can make sense. Unless an UpcomingGame can be cancelled, there will indeed be a Result for the Game, so there is no need to separate the information into 2 tables. I'd say, a user interface could look like this:
As you can see, the T_NUM column is an autovalue. Before entering any data, I initialized that column using a query like this (and deleted that record afterwards):
INSERT INTO Games ( T_NUM )
VALUES (1004);
This way, the numbering started with number 1005.
You won't be able to to avoid gaps in the numbering, as long as the users can remove existing records or cancel the insertion of a new record. If you want at least to avoid the latter, you will need some VBA code in the form.
I have to develop this database for my work and one part of it is that I have 4 different types of members that need to available to the system: Students, Parents, Mentors, and Coaches. Each have different information associated, so they all have their own table. Another table is a "notes" table that I want to be able to attach and unlimited number of notes to each member.
So for each table, there is a formatted autonumber. For students this number should be S#### in an incremental order. It doesn't matter the number and there will be far fewer than 9,999 students so I'm confident that's all I'll need. Then there's also P#### for parents, and so on.
It needs to be this way because the database also houses survey questions and responses. My notion is that survey responses can be uniquely identified by the member_ID, year, and term taken (since they're only open certain times). The problem is that without the formatted autonumber being found in the query, then ID's will be repeated and non-unique.
So my question is, does format autonumber not work? Am I going to have to use some VBA to build my own autonumbered string that will carry over through queries and other table lookups?
EDIT: So HansUp (below) suggested using a master list that the member tables feed off of. I've set this up since I haven't thought of an alternative. Basically, the flow is this:
Database user clicks "New Student"
"new student" form opens, along with "new member".
"new member" form creates a new ID # and assigns S group, sets viability off
Concatenated ID is then passed to "New student" form
If OK, then all changes are comitted
If cancel, then DoCMD.Undo for both new student and new member.
Would this do it? I'm not exactly sure how to pass that undo statement to the "New member" form though...
Leave the auto-number field as it is. it won't help you even if it does to your current business requirement it will create problem once your application grows further.
Use GUID/UUID to overcome database-level (or even global level) unique ID issues. This way you will maintain an unique ID throughout your database which will help in your case to have only one "notes" table for all of your entities.
in short:
Add a GUID field in your tables
Use triggers or public function/macro to generate the GUID
try to merge students, parents, mentor & coach into one table by separating them by "Type"
Remember an auto-number field is not continuous (in case if some records get deleted the gab will be there)
you can always perform string concatenation/format to produce S12355 number in your query to present it to your end-users.
I guess your main goal is to use only one note table for all of your users. GUID would be the way to go.
here some starting point: How can I generate GUIDs in Excel?
I have a question on databases and how information is displayed in regards to Primary and Foreign keys.
For example, there are three tables; Employees, Employee_tickets and Employee_comments.
Each employeecan have multiple tickets and also multiple comments. A foreign key is placed in the Employee tickets and Employee Comments table. My application is built in vb.net with Visual Studio and it is a desktop application. How can I query say.. Employee Name ('Jon Doe') and display all of his tickets in a grid as well as all of the comments people have made on him over time? I have created a View on the sql database which returns all of the information I require but for each ticket listed under ('Jon Doe') the View displays and Employee Name for every single ticket. Is there a way to display the employee name only once and then every ticket listed under that particular individual without displaying the Employee Name again or do I have to make Separate windows to segregate all of this?
This seems like a really dumb question and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to correctly display what is required in this situation.
Here is an example of what I am trying to explain:
So for troy there is one employee name entered in the Employee Names table, There is one CWB ticket entered in the CWB table but there are TWO PQ Cards entered in the PQR Ticket table. How Can I Display only one row for Troy and one Row for his CWB because there are only one of each entered in the tables then the two rows for the PQR Cards under his name?
I have created a view which gathers this information all into the one single view itself then bound the datagridview's to this View.
Your problem has nothing to do with databases. Rather, the issue is that you have an entity (the employee) that has two separate collections associated with it (tickets and comments) and you want to show the contents of both collections.
Doing this in a datagrid is difficult because in its simplest incarnation it's intended to show one collection of like items.
I can think of a number of possibilities:
In your code, convert each collection to a single string value and display that single string value on the row with the employee's name. This conversion could be to comma-separate a stringified version of each item in the collection (as suggested by BS123 in the comments) or could simply be a summary (eg "5 Tickets").
Put the basic employee information in one data grid and then have two additional data grids below it, one bound to the Tickets collection and one to the Comments collection.
Embed data grids directly in the main data grid, one in the Tickets column and one in the Comments column, and bind each one to the appropriate collection in the employee.
Your database structure is correct so don't change that, you simply need to solve the issue of presentation.
What you're missing here is a controller between your view and your model. Your view is presenting exactly what it was given to present - it's up to you to format it.
There are several possible solutions to this, and the correct one partially depends on needs and infrastructure.
If you infrastructure is solid and your needs are near real time, consider dropping separately querying to fill your second and third tables based on what is picked in the first. This will increase the load on the database, but your data will almost always be correct, and the data will come from the database the way you want to see it.
If the database-centered solution is not good for you, LINQ provides some good ways to filter your data into typed collections that would present exactly what you want the user to see.
To get the users:
Dim users = From l In data.lines
Group By FirstName = l.firstName, LastName = l.lastName
Into Tickets = Group, Count()
You can then present this object to your grid. While dynamic typing works here, I think it would be easier to manage view interactions with defined classes. I'll leave that part up to you. Do some searching on LINQ to fill in the rest of the blanks. It's pretty neat stuff.
I have an Access database. Let's pretend it's for a pet store.
There's a table for animals.
Animals (animal_id, birth_date, price)
And then specific tables for the different types of animals we sell.
Dogs (animal_id, bark_volume)
Cats (animal_id, collar_size, shedding_rate)
Fish (animal_id)
Fish aren't interesting so they don't have any special fields. The Fish table just exists so you know which records in the Animals table are fish.
Now, I have a general purpose form for adding animals to the pet store. Before you get the form, you first have to say what kind of animal you're adding. Based on that, the form shows/hides fields, changes its recordsource, and binds the fields to the appropriate data columns. The form pulls its data from the queries DogInfo, CatInfo, and FishInfo.
Now, when you enter a dog or a cat, everything is fine. A record is added to both Animals and either Dogs or Cats.
However, when you enter a Fish, all you get is an Animal, no Fish.
What could be causing this? Is it somehow caused by the lack of other columns on the Fish table?
(Let's leave aside the fact that updating tables with a select query makes no sense at all. I didn't expect Access to let me do it at all in the first place, but Access's motto seems to be "Make the wrong thing easy to do and the right thing awkward to do." The database is relatively simple and infrequently used, though, and it's at least 100 times better than it was before I started working on it, so I'm not really too worried about this issue as long as I can make it work.)
"Is it somehow caused by the lack of other columns on the Fish table?"
Yes - when you enter data on child records (Dogs and Cats) Access will automatically fill in the parent ID (animal_id)
Since there is no data entry for the fish record it does not get created. You have to do that in code. Not sure how your form and data source is setup but you would do something like this on one of the form events:
Fish![animal_id] = Animal![animal_id]
Edit
In your FishInfo query you must give the Fish.[animal_id] an alias - you can't have two fields with the same name - call it Fish_animal_id
Then in the Form_BeforeUpdate event put this:
Me.Fish_animal_id = Me.animal_id
Have you thought about configuring relationships on the different tables? Given the design above, I would start by adding an identifying column to the specific-animal tables, and setting it as the primary key. E.g.:
Dogs(DOG_ID, animal_id, bark_volume)
Cats(CAT_ID, animal_id, collar_size, shedding_rate)
etc. In the relationships view, you'd then define a one-to-many (one-to-one?) relationship from Animals.ANIMAL_ID to Dogs.animal_id. You could then hook up the Animals table to a combo/listbox control on your form to select a record from that table. I think if you configure the control correctly, you can even create new records from that control (or you could use a subform).
Do you not have an separate IDs for the Dogs/Cats/Fish tables? Assuming the only difference is the number of columns, I'd be curious if that suddenly fixed it.
Bad design aside, did you set up a relationship between the various tables? And did you set the tables to enforce referential integrity?