New Database Setup

[sirwalterjones]

Good afternoon all,

I am fairly new to access and am having trouble with this database design.

Basically I am creating a report management system for a security department. Currently I have one table that I call a face sheet. This information allows me to put information about a crime and also a suspects information. I have created command buttons that allow me to print off the record when it's been completed. This record goes into a paper file.



The problem I am having is sometimes I have multiple suspects. I don't have room to put more than one suspect on the form, in regards to being able to keep everything on one page when printing. Is there a way to associate a new table that can be opened to enter additional suspects, but keep that table associated only with the particular primary key assiged to one record? So if I have a record which uses a case number as a primary key, and I have multiple suspects for that case number, I only want those suspects to be associated with the records primary key. I am not concerned about the additional suspects printing out on the original face sheet, but I just want to make sure they are associated with the case number.

I hope that makes sense. Also, how do I make the database searchable or create a search so that I can search it by any field contained in the database?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[orange]

A few thoughts:

Why would you start out to design a system for Paper files? Why not use the computer and programs to work with digital data?

To get a better understanding of Relational Database Concepts
see: http://forums.aspfree.com/microsoft-...es-208217.html

You really should start with a data model to help you understand what it is you are trying to do, and to communicate with whoever you're working with.

see Entity Relationship Diagramming and Normalization
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/topic238.html


See the following link for a general data model related to criminal records.
See the requirements link on this model to see the "facts" behind the model

http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_...ping/index.htm

[sirwalterjones]

Thanks for your help.

I have a new question. I am creating queries...I found out how to create a parameter query, but is there a way to subject that parameter to include for instance someone types in "c" and for it to include everything in the database with C in it?

[orange]

The quick answer is YES. But there can be some side effects - with large tables there can be speed/performance issues, not to worry about those just yet.

Take a look at this free video tutorial and see if it helps
http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/f...earchform.html

It isn't exactly what you asked but very close. He's searching for names etc that start with one or more letters. So he can make use of indexes and the Like operator.