Database design - first access project!!

[dantray02]

Hi,

First of all please bear with me. This is my first project and I would like some advice as to the best way to approach creating the following database.



It is to be a client/task management database with the following key modules:

Contacts
Clients
Tasks/Jobs
Phone Calls

As I am new I am trying to modify/merge the following custom databases, which seperately do exactly what i need:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/te...010206879.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/te...001225356.aspx

I just need help/best practice advice to merge them and link the tables, taking into account:

All clients will have contacts
There may be multiple contacts for clients
There may be multiple clients for contacts
All clients/contacts will or may have jobs and tasks
Some jobs will be linked to phone calls
some phone calls may need to be linked to other phone calls.


All clients/contacts should be linked to both tasks and phone calls.

Ideally I could create tasks from phone calls, and also create clients from contacts.

One other thing, is eventually I would like to be able to create recurring jobs that appear every three months/annually/daily etc.

I am really struggling with this so just a point in the right direction would be amazing.

thanks,
dan.

[ranman256]

Sound like you are doing good..these tables will all have 1 to many relationship with the tContacts table.
The tContacts.ID will exist in all tables, so 1 client will have: many phones, many contacts, many jobs, etc.

Use the wizard to build forms and sub forms for data entry/retrieval.

[orange]

Dan,
If you really are new to database generally, I recommend you work through this tutorial. It will show you a generic approach that will lead you to a database structure that supports a business description. You have to work through it, but it will deal with concepts that you will become familiar with, and that will help you with your current issue. The tutorial comes with all steps and a solution.

Good luck.

[dantray02]

hi,

thank you very much for your comments and advice. I will definitely take the tutorial. I really really need to.

The two databases i am trying to merge contain all the forms and tables i need (with some slight modification). my main problem at the minute, apart from incompetency, is getting the relationships correct and establishing a common link between them all.

cheers.