Hey guys! New to the forums but long-time reader. Casual user of Access who is trying to go pro.
I'm developing a project management database for my team at work. My department is a group of engineers that researches, qualifies, selects, and purchases vehicles for our organization's fleet. There's a lot of note taking of vehicle requirements, meeting with the end users, memos, writing a specification documents, then finally getting the project thru the byzantine requisition process.
Right now I have the foundations of the database set up, with the end goal of managing all dat thru forums - so anyone can use it. There are three key tables: Vehicles, which lists all vehicles we're replacing (with columns like type, make, model, unit number); Projects, which summarizes vehicles into groups, and adds columns like the project number, cost estimate, quantity; and lastly Contacts; which is a linked table pulling my list of contacts from Outlook (so that end users can be tied to specific projects). There's also Notes table that has a 1-to-many relationship with the Projects table.
Right now I have a basic form set up based on the Projects table. The idea is to go thru project by project, adding estimates and tracking numbers as they come available, and then add Notes on an ongoing basis (i.e. everything via the form). I want to figure out how I can create a form-based method to associate or tag vehicles to a project. Right now I have them associated manually by a column that is common to both the Vehicles table and the Projects table (1 to many relationship). However, it doesn't always work and isn't elegant. What I'm visualizing is a popup dialog box that shows the Vehicles table in datasheet form, use the filter controls to get what you need, then hit a button or checkboxes to associate them. This way it's simple enough for inexperienced people to use.
Is it possible to do this just thru native Access tools? Or am I barking down a VB script path?
Thanks so much for your suggestions and I apologize if I am asking a lot here.