Parent-Child Database (MS ACCESS) - ms-access

I'm trying to build a database for a hospital program. I have two tables that are related in a parent-child relationship. I have a form to add new records (records that dont already have a parent record) and I want to build forms that allow me to view all of a parent record's "children" as well as allowing me to edit them. I want this form to allow me to search for a record in such a way that only one parent record can be
returned.
Please see my database at http://rapidshare.com/files/283207434/IC.mdb.html
-check the form called "TEST". I can't get it to work so that the main form controls can act as filters to display the child records in the subform. I have been to many many forums and my lack of knowledge makes forum tag almost useless. A friend told me that this service was fast! If there is someone out there willing to help this poor soul over IM or something, that would be terrific! But I'm willing to work with you here too :) Hope to hear from you soon!!!
-Thanks
Zorkmid

There isn't really any code involved. From what other forums have told me, I don't need any code. Here's what a MS MVP said. I've tried all that, and I cant pinpoint the errior.
Build you main form based on the main (parent) table. DO NOT use a sql join
to bring in child records. Simply build a form on this main table.
To have the form "jump" for move to selected name simply use the combo box
wizard and drop in a combo box (follow the instructions).
Now, create a continues form based on the child table. Again, you can build
this form and base it on the child table. Again, don't use a sql join, nor
try to bring in any fields or parts of the parent table.
It is assumed you also correctly setup the relationship between the two
tables in the relationship window.
Now, bring up your "main" form (the one based on the parent table) in design
mode. Make sure wizard are enabled, and then drop in a sub-form control and
follow the wizard instructions (choose the correct form based on the child
table). Ms-access will setup this for you.
The end result is that if you navigate in the main form, the child form (sub
form) will follow and display the correct child records. and, in place of
using the navigation, if you use the combo box created by the wizard, then
again when the parent form move to a record, the child form will display the
correct records.
All of the above can be done without you having to write one line of code.

Related

How to save row values from one field in subform to main form record? - Access

I have a parent form (frmGroupSession) that has a subform (SubFormParticipants) in datasheet view. The subform is based off a query that selects all participants ([CLIENT ID], [NAME], [ATTENDED]) that had attended a specific group [GroupID] on a specific date [GroupSessionDate]. The parent form saves to a table that logs group sessions (tblGroupSessionLog). I need to save the group's participants [CLIENT ID] to the record within tblGroupSessionLog
Basically, I need to pass data from the subform to the record within tblGroupSessionLog. I'm not sure what the most effective way to do this, if it's possible at all. Ideally, I would like to have each unique participant [CLIENT ID] stored in its own field within tblGroupSessionLog. If there were 20 participants in the subform then each row value from the first column/field [CLIENT ID] would be passed to the corresponding field within tblGroupSessionLog ([ClientID1] thru [ClientID20])
I am relatively new at this. Even asking the question was difficult.
I am not sure what else I can provide to help you wizards with the solve, but let me know and I will.
Thoughts? Ideas?
Access 101 : You have a many to many relationship You should look that term up but in short it means clients can belong to many groups and each group can have many clients. (so bang your data into a normalized structure similar to the following:
First tip make sure to add the relationships under database tools (you should look that up). Access needs to know how the tables are related to manage the keys behind the scenes and sometimes access makes better decisions about automatic form creating when it already knows the relationship structure. Once your data is properly structured access makes it easy to produce functional if much less than styling data entry forms which can also be used as even worse search forms. For instance Click on any table and hit create form on the ribbon and access will create the data entry form form you.
Basic Style tip 1: Always delete primary key fields like ClientID from the form. The field is still there in the form's record source being managed by access. Users almost never need to see any table keys. This gives you a basic data entry form which you can also use to scroll through any clients you have entered using the record selector circled at the bottom of the frmClients.
Play around with the record selector to see how it works. In particular go past the last record and you will find you can enter new clients and access will automatically give them a ClientID. You can also cycle through your Clients and update them using this form it just isn't stylish. In the same way we can make a form for the groups table.
You make a form for the frmGroupSessions table in the same manner as the others but add a step. Replace the text boxes holding ClientID and GroupID with human readable comboboxes. Here is a link to help with that: https://www.google.com/search?q=access+change+text+box+to+combo+box&oq=access+change+text+&aqs=chrome.0.0i457j0l2j69i57j0j0i22i30l2.7503j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_r0sFYJ7vBcfY5gLz2aTgBw15
Becomes:
At this point play around to learn. Use the Record Selector at the bottom of frmGroupSessions to add and modify data. Play with the Tables and see what happens. Start messing with the form properties in particular the default view. Soon you will have ideas about how the form could be better and you can start figuring out how to style them.

Microsoft Access - Create Form to Post Data to Intersection Table

I am sincerely sorry if this question has been asked before, however with my limited knowledge of using Microsoft Access forms I am having an issue that is likely a very simple fix.
At the moment I am trying to create a form that will allow me to post data into an intersection table using combo boxes, the purpose is to create a relation between Clients and Project Numbers, these are intended on being a Many-to-Many relationship.
Relation Example
To begin with one issue I am running into is that when I use the intersection table to select a unique Client Name I get multiple entries from the drop down menu when there are multiple items in the intersecting table.
Form Example
The second part of my issue is that I am unsure how to post data to the intersecting table once the dropdown selections have been made.
Any help is greatly appreciated, and I thank everyone for their time.
The first part is to create a form in which you find, and edit data in the main client table.
This form will ONLY be based on the single main client table.
You perhaps ALREADY have a nice form to edit the client table anyway. I mean, how else will users find and edit a client anyway? So this issue and problem will LONG be dealt with before you do anything else of use in the application.
The form based on this single table might look like this:
Ok, now close the above, and create a second form to allow adding some choices of favorite colors (or in your case ClientContract). So the form will be based on this child table.
Again, like the first form, this form is based on ONE table.
Make this form continues, so click on ClientContract table, and then from ribbon choose multiple items form from the ribbon. It will look like this:
Of course we don’t want the user to have to manually type in the color (or project in your case), so we drop in a combo box from the ribbon and use the wizard. MAKE sure the first column of this combo is the PK of the ProjectNumber table, but FOR EASE of reading and selection, include ProjectNumber and Project Description columns in that comb box. NOTE in above how I also had added that combo box.
Assuming you closed and saved this form.
Now open our first main client form in design mode, and drag + drop in the continues second form we just created onto this form. The resulting form will look like this:
Access will automatic set up he customer_ID for us (because it is a sub form attached to the main form that only displays the one main record).
Once the above works, then again close the lot, and open up our continues form in design mode and remove all the extra junk.
(leaving ONLY the combo box).
The result is this:

MS Access - populate checkbox list from table

I'm using a local Access database. Let's say I have 3 tables -
Projects, Contractors, Project_Contractors (linking table, multiple contractors can work on multiple projects).
I'm building a form to be used to create a new Project entry. I want this form to have a checkbox list of all the Contractors, so the form will add a new entry to the Projects table as well as populate the linking table.
I'm very experienced with SQL, but not with Access. Is there a way I can populate a list of form options directly from the Contractors to complete this? I'm using Access 2013.
A listbox control is pretty good at accomplishing this. With larger datasets it can be clunky to scroll through them all, and if you can't make it tall enough to show all rows you also lose visibility on previous selections, but it's pretty easy to set up and link to the Contractors table (you should be able to do it through the wizard, or type some SQL into the control source).
Turning on the multi-select property of the listbox should do what you are looking for. MultiSelect Property
Getting the selections out of the listbox to generate your append queries I think requires VBA. Here's a link explaining how to accomplish it. Clicky
EDIT: to more directly answer your question, you could use checkboxes by adding a boolean field (there's a checkbox option there) to your Contractors table and use the table as a subform in your entry form. I personally think that's bad design, and the steps to clean it up make it way more complicated than using a listbox.

How to edit subform based on joined tables in Access 2010

I'm designing an Access 2010 web database, and I'm trying to create a subform that will display data based on joined tables. It displays alright, but I can't modify the data. The two tables are called Consortiums and PrincipleInvestigators. There's a many-to-many link between them, so I have a ConsortiumsPrincipleInvestigators join table.
I have a "consortium" form which displays the data related to a specific consortium, and has a subform within that form that displays the principle investigators part that consortium. I was able to successfully all the PIs, but when I try to add a principle investigator within that subform, it gives me an error: "Cannot add record(s); join key of table 'PrincipleInvestigatorsConsortiums' not in recordset. What gives? I imagine it's because I need to update both the PrincipleInvestigators table and the join table. (Also, MS, why can't I just use standard relational database stuff instead of this silly lookup field business?) Here's some screenshots of my table layout and my join table:
http://i.imgur.com/j4RJQ.png
Bleh. I feel noobish although I've done a decent amount of database projects, but the lookup fields and query builder is throwing me off. Does anyone know of any good tutorials on how to design queries?
There is really nothing that changes in terms of building a relationship between two tables. The fact that you use a GUI, a SQL DLL command, or now some relationship wizard changes nothing.
I mean who cares what the process is much to setup a relationship between two tables?
I mean, in client based you could type in something like this:
ALTER TABLE Cars
ADD CONSTRAINT MyColorIDRelationship
FOREIGN KEY (ColorID) REFERENCES Colors (ColorID)
So, now you use some wizard that is a few mouse clicks and this is some big deal? Really, who cares! No big woopy here, all we care is that you execute some command, or some wizard, or something here and you at the end of your day the result is your beloved relation between the two tables.
Check out the following video of mine where I "hook up" some existing related data into a web database. And I ALSO share how you can printout the related tables using the Access relationship window for a web database:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL27E956A1537FE1C5&feature=plcp
So, at the end of the day, no need to get twisted up in some details of having to use some DDL sql command, some GUI relationships window, or some wizard. All you are doing as the above video shows is hooking up some tables and setting up a relation – nothing more, nothing less to worry about.
As for how to add child records that are to be related to a parent record? Well, in the past for the last 18 years, quite much every bird, dog, and beetle using Access would simply do this:
a) Create a main form based on the ONE main parent record table. There is NO NEED to build a query here, and in fact NO need to build a query that is a join of the two tables – this was never required and is not required. All you do is build a form based on the one simple table. We are done this part "a".
b) Create a form based on the ONE child table. There is NO NEED TO build a query here, and in fact NO need to build a query that is a join of the two tables – this was never required and is not required. All you do is build a form based on the one simple table.
c) open up first form (the form based on parent record table) and then in layout mode, now drag + drop in the child form from the nav pane.
The above a,b,c steps is how virtually EVERY parent to child setup in Access I seen done, and this long time forever setup CONTINUES to work 100% in web based applications.
In both cases (web or non web), the setup remains the same, the setup does not involve building quires, and the setup does not require ANY coding on your part.
As long as the link/master child settings are correct in the sub form control, then you are free to add child records to the child form and Access will do the rest of the dirty work of setting up and maintain the relation for you by setting the FK column in that child form for you.
So, how the basic setup works here has not changed in 18 years of using Access, and as such this does not change when building a web form here.
You don't need a query based on more than one table, and in fact JUST like in the past, the two forms will as a general rule will have their data source based only on the one table.
So in most cases there was never a need to even use a query for that one table that the form is going to be based on. This long time basic approach and setup has not change for web forms either.
In your case I would assume the main form is Consortium. You child form could be a continues form based on Principleinvegiartors. And in place of having to manually enter some PrincipleInvetigaor ID, you use a combo box based on table PrincipleInvetgioars. However, again in all cases, we are simply building forms that are based on a single base table.
For this situation, you should choose one of your tables for the main form and the junction table for the subform.
For example:
Main Table
Consortiums
Subform
ConsortiumsPrincipleInvestigators
Link Child and Master Fields ConsortiumID
ComboBox on subform
Principal investors
Row source: SELECT InvestorID, InvestorDetails FROM PrincipalInvestors
Control Source: InvestorID
Bound Column: 1
Column Count: 2
Column Widths: 0,2
Some notes on Not In List
DoCmd.OpenForm "AddSomething", , , , , acDialog, AddData
If Forms!AddSomething.Tag <> "" Then
frm(cbo).Undo
frm(cbo).Requery
frm(cbo) = Forms!AddSomething.Tag
AddCombo = acDataErrAdded
Else
AddCombo = acDataErrContinue
End If
DoCmd.Close acForm, "AddSomething"

Access--I need a list of dynamic check boxes on a form

I am trying to create a form in Access which will have a dynamic list of check boxes. It starts with a table tblMASTER_ATTACHMENT_LIST which will have three columns: MASTER_ATTACHMENT_ID, CLASS, and ATTACHMENT_NAME. (Before I go any further, this question is not about file attachments. Think more along the lines of an attachment to a report.) tblMASTER_ATTACHMENTS will be "pre-populated" with all possible reports and their classification. There will be another table tblREPORT_ATTACHMENTS, which will have the following columns: ID, REPORT_ID, MASTER_ATTACHMENT_ID, and ATTACHED_BL (boolean). So, depending on the class of the report, the list of possible attachments may change. I would like the list of possible attachments to be populated on a form, with check boxes next to each one to show whether it was actually attached or not.
I was thinking about a workflow such as once a user selects the class of report, to delete any records in the tblREPORT_ATTACHMENTS with the REPORT_ID equal to the current RECORD_ID, and then fill the form control with the results of SELECTing the records from the master table where CLASS = selected class.
If this workflow makes sense, I could use some help implementing it. Specifically, how do I build the control on the form that will hold the check boxes? If this workflow is not a very smart way to do, can someone suggest a better way? And explain how to do it?
By the way, I did search for this, but I don't really know what this type of thing is called. Makes it pretty hard to search for. If this is a common thing, perhaps someone could just point me in the right direction. In that case, a full answer here would not be necessary.