I have looked and haven't found a method on here to do this. I am assuming my search is skewed and I just missed it, if this is the case, please let me know.
Anywhooo, I have a large and unwieldy report coming out of SAP every day. Because it will often have some strangeness, we import that into an Access database so we can keep an eye on the stuff we need in our department. I am using a combination of 6 fields to create a primary key in Access. The information in those fields is about the only thing consistent I get out of this SAP report, but the remainder of the data can be considered dynamic and can change from day to day. Usually this is a matter of filling in a few blanks, Occasionally this is changing existing data, and on rare occasions, it may involve deleting data out of a handful of fields.
The SAP report is around 130 columns of data, So I'm looking for an efficient way to roll in the changes without overwriting what folks put in there manually.
EDIT:
Here is the way this is used. SAP (for reasons I'm not going to go into) sometimes will have bad data show up in the daily report. We are using Access to track and put the correct data in to something that we can generate much more accurate summaries. What the users put in is to be considered true and accurate.
The transactions we are tracking can take a long time to complete. Most take around 30 days to complete. That's why I will have blank fields on one day, and several of them to be filled in on the next. We might not get any for the next few days and then a bunch more are filled in later. That is the normal flow.
What I have to account for is the odd occasion where a mistake is made early in the process. At a certain point, an error will break SAP's ability to update anything at all in the report we have to use.
I have 3 fields set up that trigger what my users daily work is going to be. There is a logical flow so that user 1 completes what he needs to do and then that record will show up on User 2's report. These fields will also stop the general update process in an exception report if there is a difference in what is coming in from SAP, and what is already in my database.
What I am looking for is some way to systematically fill in blank fields, on existing records in access. I do not want to overwrite if something is in a field, only the null values. I can do this on one field at a time, but each record has about 130 fields. I'm wondering if there is a way I could do this in just 1 query?
Thanks all! I hope the edit makes more sense now
A simple google for "Access SQL update null values" could have yeilded you what you need. But if all you need to do is fill constant values into empty fields then something like:
UPDATE Table SET Table.field1 = VALUE
WHERE Table.field2 is NULL;
Now if this data is different for each record based on; say data from another field, then you may need to write some VBA to build that value/string for you. But otherwise if you are JUST updating null fields to include data, then a simple UPDATE statement will do
EDIT Based on new info:
So if I'm understanding correctly: you have two tables. One table with the blank fields and another table that contains the values you need.
If this is the case, you can use a similar UPDATE statement, but use an inner join to get the data you need from table B to fill in table A
UPDATE TableA INNER JOIN TableB ON TableA.KeyField = TableB.KeyField
SET TableA.NullField = TableB.NotNullField
WHERE TableA.NullField Is NULL;
Related
I'm trying to create a small MS Access database to ease up my everyday job. The problem is I'm a noob when it comes to databases. I'm trying to prevent the user from accidentaly updating the wrong record.
I have a table of records, some of which are not 100% complete.
I created a query that lists only these incomplete records.
On a form, the mentioned query is fed into a listbox.
I want the user to be able to pick an incomplete record from this listbox and fill in some of the remaining parts of the record in a bunch of text boxes. What I don't like is that the record gets updated as you fill in the form fields (they're bound to the table) WITHOUT any request for confirmation. If the user picks a wrong record at the start, the records are gonna get messy with every text box filled. Or that's what seems to be happening.
Here's my idea of the user form:
Is there a correct way to do this? I could force it all with VBA but I'd rather avoid that and use a more native (correct) solution.
Thank you for any answers.
Table constraints are an important part of database design. Any grouping of elements that together are required should be in their own table. This way the required fields must be entered for every record in that table.
For each data entry step you will have one or more tables representing the required data of that step.
If you are following database normalization best practices this should be simple to achieve because your data will already be broken down in to small elements that can have required fields to complete each record.
If you have a record that contains fields that are filled out at different steps then that is a design smell that indicates your table is not properly normalized.
In MS-Access, the forms will follow these rules set in the tables. You will not be able to save a record that has required fields missing.
I'm hoping this will be a rather simple question to answer, as I'm not looking for any specific code. I have a table on a classic asp page populated from an sql server. I've just set the table up so that each row is clickable and takes you to a page to edit the data in the row. My question is this: Would I be better off trying to use the recordset that populated the table or should I reconnect to the db and pull just the record I want edited.
As always; It Depends. It depends on what you need to edit about the record. It depends on How far apart your DB and site are from each other. It depends on which machine, if the DB and site are on separate machines, is more powerful.
That being said, you should make a new call for that specific record. The reason mainly being because of a specification you made in your question:
...and takes you to a page to edit the data in the row
You should not try to pass a record set between pages. There are a few reasons for this
Only collect what you need
Make sure data is fresh
Consider how your program will scale
On point 1 there are two ways to look at this. One is that you are trying to pass the entire record set across a page when you only need 1 record. There are few situations where another DB call would cost more than this. The other is you are only passing one record which would make me question your design. Why does this record set have every item related to a record. You are selecting way too much for just a result list. Or if the record is that small then Why do you need the new page. Why can you not just reveal an edit template for the item if it is that minimal.
On point 2 consider the following scenario. You are discussing with a coworker how you need to change a customer's record. You pull up this result set in an application but then nature calls and you step away from you desk. The coworker gets called by the customer and asked why the record is not updated yet. To placate the customer your coworker makes the changes. Now you are using an old record set and may overwrite additional changes your coworker made while you were away. This all happens because you never update the record set, you always just pass the old one from page to page.
On point 3 we can look back a point 1 a bit. let us say that you are passing 5 fields now. You decide though that you need a comments field to attach to one of your existing fields. do you intend to pass 2000 characters of that comment field to the next page? How about if each of the 5 need a comment field? Do you intend to pass 10,000 characters for a properly paged record set of 10? do you not do record set paging and need to pass 10,000 characters for a full 126 records.
There are more reasons too. Will you be able to keep your records secure passing them this way? Will this effect your user's experience because they have a crummy computer and cannot build that quick of a post request quickly? Generally it is better to only keep what you need and in most situations your result set should not have everything you need to edit.
What is the best way to organize a big database.
The way it works is that only I am allowed to touch or modify the database but interns help sometimes to collect data, we used to have the whole system excel based, back than we had the macro which by choosing 2 files it will integrate and mark in colors the changes.
How can I create something friendly to use which will update by pressing a button and also will show changes!! I am familiar with the update query, however:
it doesn’t track any changes.
I want to know other options.
To sum up the way of processing is:
I have the database and I need to split some data to smaller files so other employees will work on.
Then I will collect the files and integrate with the existing database, but since we are all human mistakes can happened that’s why I want to be able to track easily changes.
The updates are going to happen often. When I will give the intern a temp. table The possible changes are for example: address, phone number, price, they will do those researches based on current data which they will find online which information has been changed, and they will change the info which is on the temp. table, That is why I want to be able to know what exactly did they found out. Lets say if Product A (product ID1234) used to cost 10$ and today its 12$ from the same supplier. I just want to know and to see that the price for product ID1234 has been changed. Not only to have it updated to the back end database. For quality assurance I need to track which new input they did in relation to the product ID. (some times input by someone else which was done in wrong format or wrong column could affect big time on the quality of the reports)
So this was the explanation for what I need the reports
So in order to make those temp. tables, I want to create a form for it that by choosing region, category etc. and then clicking on a button it will automatically select the relevant records from the database, create a new table/access-file and then copy the selected records to the temp. table. So someone else could work on it...
Next thing is that it would be nice to know how can I create a template for tables, by template I mean to standardize by validation rules. some fields I'd like to have dropbox menu, some fields ready mask for phone number.... etc.
Final part, after they made the changes and saved the file (the temp. table which they were working on), I want to be able to update the back-end database via clicking on a button...
Looking forward to get the best solution!
Thanks in advance J
Michael
Okay for the temp tables thing:
why not split your database in a backend part (having all the tables) and a frontend part which contain the forms and tables the interns need? I'm guessing mostly it is going to be the same so you can even create multiple different frontend's to give to different interns incase they need other tables. There are a lot of articles out there about splitting a database and linking tables.
Then the thing about the record changes not sure is this is what your looking for but it could help, i haven't used it myself so not sure what it exacly does. But this may help you a bit.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197592
I would consider taking a look at the BeforeUpdate event for the form. You can trap the old and new values of textboxes if the form is bound to a table. You could loop through all the controls on your form and check for Me.Control <> Me.Control.OldValue. If they don't match, write both values to an auditing table so you can go back and check whenever you want to. I would include the following fields in your auditing table:
ChangeDate
TableName
ControlName
OldValue
NewValue
Then you can query that table any time you want to see what has changed.
I'm trying to make access conditionally only show rows that meet a certain condition, allow me to give you some background info before I proceed :
I've created an Access form and linked it to a test DB on my machine. The particular table I am interested in contains the following (important) rows :
ID , Office, Name, SecurityNumber
The thing is, ID is not unique. There are two Office locations, and each Office has it's own set of unique ID numbers. This means that ID 10 here and there may or may not be the same person. (this data comes out of a legacy security system we're not looking to change yet, so I cannot change it)
But ID -is- unique to each Office.
SO! I created an Access form with TABS! Two tabs, one for each office. What I am trying to achieve now is :
Have the ID/Name/SecurityNumber fields for each tab populate with only rows that match it's particular 'Office' value.
Thank you for reading and thank you for helping! :D
If you want the data for the office locations presented in separate tab page controls, you could use subforms on the pages which differ only in the WHERE clause of the queries used as their record sources. So for the Office1 subform, the query could be:
SELECT ID, Office, [Name], SecurityNumber
FROM YourTable
WHERE Office = 'Office1'
ORDER BY [Name];
Then for Office2, the query would be the same except for the WHERE clause:
WHERE Office = 'Office2'
As I understand your question, that approach would do what you're asking for.
However, that's not really the easy "Access way" to do it. Instead consider a combo box control to allow your users to choose which office they want to view. In the code for the combo's after update event, either modify the SELECT statement used as the form's record source or create a filter expression an apply it.
Also, since you're pulling the form's data from SQL Server, consider whether you want your form to load every record for the selected office location. It may not be much concern if you have only a few to moderate number of rows for each location, but if you'll be dealing with multiple thousands of rows it could be. In general, you should try to avoid pulling copious amounts of data across the wire; pull sparingly instead ... only what you need for the immediate task at hand.
I work with a product that comes in a 2000lb sack and placed on a pallet. When this product is made it has many different elements that are tested and each test has a field that the numerical data is placed in. Each of these records of tests are then assign a number, for example, L20444.
Now we have the ability to take that 2000lb sack and convert it into 80 20lb bags. Only 40 20lb bags can fit on one pallet, taking now the one pallet L20444 and making two pallets that have the number L20444. This causes a problem with inventory because the number L20444 can only be assign one warehouse location, not two.
So my bosses what to create a number that is almost the same, but different enough to place the second pallet in the warehouse. The second pallet will now be L20444B. It will still have all the same tested numbers and is a "copy" of the original L20444.
My question is can I take the record L20444 and copy all the data for that record and then save it as L20444B so that it can be placed in the warehouse.
So is it possible for VBA to copy a record, rename it, and then save it in the same database as a new record?
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.
If I'm reading you right it sounds like you want a SQL statement to create a new record.
You're using Microsoft Access? I would recommend first creating a query that does this in the query editor. It will be an Append query, something along the lines of:
INSERT INTO TableA ( ID,col1, col2 )
SELECT [ID] & "B" AS NewName,col1, col2
FROM TableA
WHERE (([ID]="L20444"));
Test this first to make sure it's doing what you want, and make "L20444" into a parameter ([OldID], or something). Then add some code in your VBA script that executes this query. It should pop up asking you for OldID when you run it.
Then you'll need to learn how to execute parameterized queries from VBA.
Something like this:
Set qdf1 = CurrentDb.QueryDefs("myQuery")
qdf1.Parameters("OldID") = theOldID
qdf1.Execute
Not tested, search VBA help for QueryDefs if my syntax isn't quite right.
Why don't you create a new table, which tracks the location of the two pallets (and the new number(s)), which links back (with a foreign key) to the single record for the stock in the original table?
That should work, and will avoid what will otherwise become a nightmare of redundant data.