newbie question

[sbrady19]

we are about to use Access to make a database. We are a broadcast network. We are severely behind the times. We have been around for 50 years. We make about 500 videos a year. My questions is, I know will be tweaking the table a lot. I don't see us getting it right the 1st time. I know is 3 months the person using it will say, "Oh, I need a field for the LENGTH of the video, we'll need to add that".




After we make the initial table for the database, can we go back and add fields AFTER we have already filled out data for 100 records, then go back to those 100 and add the data for the newly created field.

thanks.

[pbaldy]

Sure. Presuming you split the database as you should, you would need to get users out, but there's no problem adding fields after the fact. None of us gets them all in the first go.

[sbrady19]

what do you mean split the database.

[sbrady19]

we might start out with:
project name, creation date, air date, producer name, video length,

but then in 1 month figure out we need:
video editor, audio editor,

we need to be able to add forgotten fields, even if the previously entered records DID NOT have this data when they were entered.

[pbaldy]

Splitting has been discussed a lot here, plus there's

http://allenbrowne.com/ser-01.html

It also sounds like a normalization tutorial might be in order:

Fundamentals of Relational Database Design -- r937.com

What you're thinking of adding as fields I'd probably have in a related table, with a record for each one (particularly since there can probably be more than one of any given title).