Unwanted Memo Field Truncation

[stacerx2001]

Hello,

I've built a query as seen below to gather data on what my employees have worked on and when. The query runs perfectly except for my memo field (which are basically employee notes) is being truncated. Ugh! I've read through hundreds of forums and suggestions to no avail. I changed UNION to UNION ALL, I've put my NOTES last on my list as well as using FIRST. I also removed it from GROUP BY.

Any suggestions? Thanks! Stacey

SELECT SUM ([ELAPSED TIME]), NAME, [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER], FIRST(NOTES) as FIRSTOFNOTES
FROM Employee1
WHERE [WORK ORDER] Like WO And [START DATE] > START And [START DATE] < END
GROUP BY [NAME], [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER]
UNION ALL
SELECT SUM ([ELAPSED TIME]), NAME, [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER], FIRST(NOTES) as FIRSTOFNOTES
FROM Employee2
WHERE [WORK ORDER] Like WO And [START DATE] > START And [START DATE] < END
GROUP BY [NAME], [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER]
UNION ALL SELECT SUM ([ELAPSED TIME]), NAME, [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER], FIRST(NOTES) as FIRSTOFNOTES
FROM Employee3
WHERE [WORK ORDER] Like WO And [START DATE] > START And [START DATE] < END
GROUP BY [NAME], [PROJECT], [WORK ORDER], [START DATE], [START TIME], [LINE NUMBER];

[June7]

That's the nature of memo field. I avoid them as much as possible.

Why are there separate tables for employees?

LIKE operator without wildcard is meaningless - might as well just use = sign. And the text parameter should be in quote marks

[Work Order] LIKE "WO*"

[ranman256]

you cant query on memo. And it sometimes truncates upon export from a query, tho it WONT truncate if you export from a table. (bizzare)

[orange]

You may want to review this article from Allen browne.

[stacerx2001]

Thanks for your feedback! I think I'll change my strategy and like you said, just avoid the memo field altogether...for now at least.

I'm new to creating databases so I may have messed up on properly separating data groups. I have a timesheet program that creates a database file for each employee of which I simply import into the employee's table. Each employee table is basically their timesheet info, i.e., their name, date of clock in, time of clock in and out, their notes, and what project it's linked to and subprojects. From these tables I can create all variations of data reports.