Adding columns to existing tables.

[OrangePie]

Hello!

My company has been using a multi-user access 2003 database for quite sometime.

We're planning on adding some new things to our forms (like a 'notes' section, and a few new textboxes for things)

We're able to make the changes in the forms, but my question is: If i add a new 'notes' column to the original database, or a 'eye color' column to an existing (and large!) table located in the backend (be) of the database, will that corrupt the data? Or cause any problems?



We have lots of data stored in this table, and it's scary to make any changes to the table. Should I be okay in adding to it?

Thanks!

--Jeff

[jzwp11]

If you add textboxes to the form but do not bind those textboxes to fields in the underlying table, any data you put into those textboxes will not be saved, so you will have to modify the backend table(s).

The best way I have found to do that is to move the file to your local hard drive, make the edits to the table and then return the file back to its original location on the server.

Of course, I would make a backup of the backend file before you make any changes.


Also, please make sure you follow normalization rules when modifying the structure of the database. For example, if a record can have many notes associated with it, then that describes a one-to-many relationship and thus the notes should be stored as records in a related table rather than a field in the current table.