Trying to pull data from text boxes on a form into a query and out to a table? - ms-access

Question

I posted a couple times over the last couple of days about some trouble I'm having with an inventory database that I'm trying to make at work. I have very little experience, so have been mostly following YouTube tutorials and walk throughs online.
Essentially I have a table that will be filled with inventory information such as ID number, manufacturer, model number, etc. I then have a form that has a text box for each field in the table that the user will fill in and then an Add, Delete and Edit button that will allow them to either Add a new record by filling in the text boxes and clicking Add or select a current record in the table from a combo box or list and edit it or delete it by clicking the associated buttons.
I tried to code this first and kept getting an error for the past two days no matter how much I tried to fix it and what advice I got on here, so now I'm at the point where I'm just using queries to do it.
Right now I have a main table, temp table, the form, and then these queries:
1. delete query that will clear the temp table
2. append query that will take the records from my temp table and add them to my main table
3. append query that will take the selected record on form and add it to the temp table
4. update query that will update the fields on the main table to the data in the temp one
5. delete query that will delete the record you select on the main form from the main table
This was my plan:
for adding a new record
1. run query no.1
2. load the form
3. if OK button clicked:
4. run query no.2
for editing
1. run query no.1
2. run query no.3
2. load the form
3. if OK button clicked:
4. run query no.4
for deleting:
1. load a msgbox with the YesNo options
2. if Yes button clicked:
3. run query no.5
The one I'm having trouble with is query number 3. I've made the query correctly to the best of my knowledge, but when I fill out the form and click add it tells me the query is going to append 0 rows and then it doesn't add anything to the temp table.
I also can't seem to figure out how to take the data from the temp table and move it to the main table using the query.
I'm linking to an IMGUR post with screenshots in it here:
http://imgur.com/a/ffWge
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I hesitate to answer this since there are too many points to cover. Gustav already gave great advise about learning to use Access Forms like they are intended. But from the screenshots, it looks like you misunderstand something fundamental about the Access query designer. Even though you shouldn't have to write any queries for want you want to do, at some point you will need to understand how to properly design a query.
If you want the query to insert FROM the form INTO the table, then the table field references should not be in the criteria, they should be like this:
Field: [Forms]![frmInventory]![ICN]
Table: {leave blank}
Append To: ICN
Criteria: {leave blank}
Also, remove [tblInventoryTemp] from the query window since you already specified the destination table in the Append Query pop-up window. The SQL should look something like this:
INSERT INTO tblInventoryTemp ( ICN, model, serial, ... )
SELECT [Forms]![tblInventory]![ICN], [Forms]![tblInventory]![model], [Forms]![tblInventory]![serial], ...
Likewise for the other query to copy from temp to the main table. You should have already specified the destination table in the pop-up window, so remove [tblInventory] from the query window. Also remove the list of fields you have in the Criteria row. The SQL should look something like this:
INSERT INTO tblInventory ( manu, model, serial, ... )
SELECT tblInventoryTemp.manu, tblInventoryTemp.model, tblInventoryTemp.serial, ...
FROM tblInventoryTemp
Access will likely add more details, but the general form of the SQL should match what I have.