Current User Report with hold and open ended dates

[LordMike]

Hello,

I manage a fleet of vehicles at work with drivers assigned to these vehicles. Each driver may opt to pay a contribution for private use of these vehicles.

This can normally be done on an excel database, however, the drivers sometimes go on leave, so I need to put their payments on hold. At this time, other drivers may take over for that period or the vehicle is left at the office. Also, the drivers change their level of contribution from time to time, so I need to adjust that accordingly too.

When the driver takes over a vehicle they complete a form that has the contribution level (there are 4 to chose from) and the dates they will have it from. They always provide a start date, however, sometimes the end date is left open.

Sometimes, driver A will say something like 'From 1 Jan 2012 To Open' then driver B may take it for a week and say 'From 1 July 2012 To 1 August 2012'.



I want to know if Access is the right tool to produce the report with the current driver, and that it will revert back to the Driver A after 1 August?

I'm very rusty with Access and only have Access 2003 at work. Could someone advise what I may need to do to make this work? Thank you!

[Robeen]

Access is a very good tool to get this done.
For someone experienced with developing applications, this would not be very difficult.

You could do it on your own and a good place to start would be:
1. Refresh your memory about 'Normalizing' a database or 'Relational Database Principals' [it won't take very long to read up on this]
2. Create tables for your application.
3. Put data in there that you can use for testing as you develop your application.
4. Create a Form for adding or modifying data in your tables.

I recommend you try having a StartDate and an EndDate for your drivers & leave EndDate blank for 'Open Ended' vehicle use.

Once you get to that point - you will have to address the question of what happens if a vehicle is 'checked out' [has a start date - but no end date].

The most important part of your development will be in setting up your tables correctly.
If you get that right, getting the Forms to do what you want will be pretty easy.

All the best! Let us know if you have questions.