Lookup Wizard Question

[Marisha]

Hello!
I am trying to set up a lookup between two tables using the lookup wizard. The parent table has roles such as "manager", "assistant", etc. and the child table has employee records.
In the child table I want to be able to add a new employee and then have a drop down list linked to the parent table from which I can choose his role. But once I go through the wizard, the data type for the role column in the child table changes from "text" to "number".
If you have any advice on why this is happening and how I can fix this issue, I would really appreciate it. Thank you!

[NTC]

I feel you have your terms of Parent/Child reversed - - but that aside - - your lookup is binding to key field probably. Which it is suppose to.

What you can do - is delete that look up field temporarily. Go to the table that holds these roles - and eliminate the key field - so that this is a single column table.

Now go back to your employee table and create a look up table - - now because the role table only has 1 column which is text - it will bind to it....

Hope this helps.

[Marisha]

Hi NTC,
That solved the problem, thank you so much for your advice!!
As for the terms, I thought the employee table was the "child" because it pulled data from the roles table. Is this incorrect? Thanks for clarifying!

[NTC]

the classical use of Parent/Child does not apply to your situation. In your case you are using a look up table or sometimes called list - because it is essentially static. The 2 letter state initial is a good example of a list table which sole purpose is to be a lookup source.

Parent/Child generally refers to active tables that are 1:Many with a cross referencing key field.

None of this terminology is set in stone but this is the most common view I believe.

Happy to help.

[Marisha]

That's good to know, thank you so much for all your help!

[boblarson]

By the way you should NOT be using lookups at TABLE LEVEL if you are doing so. You should be using them at FORM level and NOT directly in the tables.

See here for more about why:
http://www.mvps.org/access/lookupfields.htm

[Marisha]

That's a good point. Thanks, Bob!