Create new record from combobox multiple selection

[New2016]

Hello, I have used Access for awhile now but mostly with single tables. I'm now trying to create a database with multiple tables but have a problem with how to do some of the relationships. I have a table with a list of cars and another table with a list of parts. On the parts table there is a reference to the cars table allowing multiple selections, the same part could be used on more than one car. I want to be able to specify an attribute, like color, for the part that is unique to the car it goes on but can't figure out how to accomplish this without creating multiple entries of the same part.

any help is greatly appreciated!

[Micron]

Multiple entries do not necessarily make for a badly normalized structure. If there is a characteristic of the record that cannot be dealt with any other way but it is still 'related' then there's nothing wrong with that. It's when unlike things get lumped into the same table, or things that should be in rows end up in columns that things are badly normalized (to put it much too simply). If you had 4 sources for a part, how else would you identify this without putting the same part number (or the id in a table) 4 times? To put the part number in the parts table 4 times would not be correct. Putting the PartID in tblSuplrAssoc (Supplier Association) 4 times would be OK - so that you can show ID 4587 from the parts table is related to 4 different suppliers. Do you put the supplier names in 4x for each of these part id's? No, you don't.

I don't get enough information from your post to grasp exactly how you're envisioning this, but I'll say the cars table should be the one side, the parts the many side of the relationship and I think you're looking at it the other way around. Perhaps you need to Google database normalization to get a better grasp on working with related tables. I'm not a guru on it, as I have to think it through when setting up a database, but I think what I've outlined here is true for the most part.

Edit: not sure what the information posted has to do with a combo box driving the creation of a record though (post title)...