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[moke123]

@moke 123,
Better??

nope. needs blue highlighting.

[Joelen]

Yes, there can be 2 owners of a Niche, one for each space

[moke123]

Yes, there can be 2 owners of a Niche, one for each space

You may then need to treat each space as its own entity.

[orange]

If your design is normalized, then you should be able to add walls, niches, spaces etc in future. Do not design for an exact number of anything. Things change, so allow for changes.
Someone(s) may like your design/database and decide to use it at their church, or your church may add another columbarium or part thereof.

You may not need to allow for owner history, but it may not be a major design/flexibility issue to have.
I've seen too many things that would never change, but do. Canadian provinces/territories for example.

Update: I think micron has laid out the proper tables. You should create a model, and test data with scenarios--vet the model, adjust as necessary. Make sure the model meets your needs before getting too deeply into loading records. Test/retest/confirm then move to physical database.

[Micron]

Hmm, no comment from anyone regarding attached spreadsheet from post 24-ish?
It should be conducive to the 1 columbarium, many walls, many niches per wall, 2 spaces per niche requirement. Since I've heard nothing regarding that from OP, when it comes to figuring out how to deal with inured who are not owners I've put my thinking cap aside for now.

[Joelen]

Do I preload the Wall Table with all possible values, e.g., (wall)1,(niche)1,A,B; 1,2,A,B;......1,80,A,B....10,80,A,B? This would be 800 preloaded values. or do I leave it empty and let it be filled as people select the Wall ,Niche,Space(s)?

[Micron]

If you're asking me:
then no. In the spreadsheet, wall table has no niche field so you're not understanding. Also, I would not do anything with that until the inured issue is figured out. You might be able to better understand the how and why of such a setup if you researched db normalization. Every "entity" (table) has attributes (fields). A niche is an entity so it does not go into another entity table.

If you're not asking me, then I have no idea what design you decided on so you can ignore this post - except maybe for the normalization research suggestion.

[orange]

@micron - I've updated my comments in #34 - I agree with tables, but would like OP to review/model/test.
@Joelen -no don't preload until you've modelled and vetted. Research Normalization.
You may get some ideas from this post.
See the Database Planning and Design link in my signature for related articles and tutorials.

[Micron]

I agree with tables, but would like OP to review/model/test.

Could you elaborate on how you do this? Perhaps you have a method or tool for this? Aside from pencil and paper, which in my mind doesn't prevent doing things that a db cannot do, I know of no other way than to create actual tables and experiment with some data. I'm curious to know how you do this.
Thanks.

[orange]

pencil and paper; strings on a wall, index cards on the table, chalk and blackboard, post-it notes on wall........

I was hoping the op would review normalization before anything.
You can work from a database - no question, But for the new to database person, it's easy to fall in to spreadsheet mode, or non normalized tables and too deep into physical database before analysis of the business and options for resolution.

I strongly recommend this tutorial from RogersAccessLibrary as a starting point. Learn and experience the process, then use it for your own database. Best use of 45 minutes when starting "database".

[moke123]

If nothing else, we've all learned what a columbarium is.

[Joelen]

Another item. on the split screen data entry form I have the "Data Entry" event set to 'no' because it allows changes/updates to be made to a previously entered record, but when I close the form and reopen it later there remains the last data I entered. I need the form to be opened clear of showing any data in the fields. Is this possible? I know it will open to a clean form if the "data entry" is set to 'yes', but I need that 'no' function.

[ssanfu]

I have 10 identical databases e.g, wall-1, wall-2...wall-10.

@Joelen.... Would you post one of the dBs? (delete/change any sensitive data) I'm playing around with the design Micron has suggested...

[Joelen]

how to post a db?

[ssanfu]

Do a "Compact and Repair", then compress it (Zip) and attach it to a post. See the "How to Attach Files" in the page header.