Populating subform using main form details

[G4L]

I have 2 tables: Project table and Estimates table

Project Table fields:
Project ID
Proj Name
Desc
Start Date
End Date

Estimate fields:
Department
# of days


$/day
Total Estimated Cost (basically # of days * $/day)

So what i want to do is that I want to find out what department is working on a specific project and the amt of days and estimated cost each department will have

So in my main form i have the project code, department, #of days and $/day

what i want to do is that whatever ive typed in the fields (see the sentence above for the fields) in the main form will be shown in the subform so that it will be easier for me to read the data as I add multiple departments into a project

But unfortunately im stuck as i dont know how to update the sub form once ive entered all the fields in the main form

[jzwp11]

Welcome to the forum.

If a project can have many departments working on it you have a one-to-many relationship, so you need to relate the project table with the estimate table

Some general recommendations:
It is best not to have spaces or special characters in your table or field names
In most cases, calculated values are not stored but rather calculated on the fly when you need them in forms, queries or reports.

So with those recommendation in mind, this is how your tables should be structured.

tblProject
-pkProjectID primary key, autonumber
-ProjName
-Desc
-StartDate
-EndDate

tblDepartment
-pkDeptID primary key, autonumber
-DeptName

tblEstimate
-pkEstimateID primary key, autonumber
-fkProjectID foreign key to tblProject
-fkDeptID foreign key to tblDepartment
-NumberOfDays
-DailyCost

In terms of forms, your main form would be based on the project table with a subform based on the estimate table. You would populate the department using a combo box based on the department table.

[G4L]

hey, i should have elaborated on my table fields...i did have the names of the fields named differently without any spaces or special characters and i do have a department table with the dept name and a pk for the dept id

but the problem i have is that im trying to populate data from the main form to the sub form for the estimates but for some reason i cant get it to work

[jzwp11]

You would only need to populate the foreign key field that relates to the primary key of the project table. If you did not have your relationships established in the relationship window before creating the main form/sub form you will have to create the join between the forms manually. To do this open the main form with the subform in design view, double click the frame of the subform (it should bring up the property sheet). Look for the data tab and then the two properites (link child fields and link master fields). Click in one of them and select the appropriate fields from each table to make the join.