Need help understanding capabilities

[squall]

Hi all,



i havent worked with access too much and am trying to get started learning about it. i have an idea of what i am looking for and will try to explain it as clearly as possible.

Basically, i have times that i would like to compare, Standard vs. Actuals, over a period of time over various tracks. I would like to be able to download the actual times each week and import that into access as an additional field as seen below:

Track AM/PM State Departure (8/27) Return (8/27) Departure (8/30) Return (8/30) Departure (9/3) Return (9/3)


The "Track", "AM/PM", "State" fields would be the unique keys and each download would have those fields with a departure and return time. Anytime after the first import, would it be possible to just add fields (columns) to the right of the database with an updated date associated with the actual times for that download?

thank you for your help with this

[RayMilhon]

My first recommendation to anyone trying to learn Access is learn Data Normalization. You want the format in your database in at least 3rd Normal form.

2ndly Why have an AM/PM field with multiple date fields. Since your doing a calculation based on period of time I would think you would want date/time fields

Like Departure(8/27/2012 8:00 AM) Return (8/27/2012 4:00 PM) Then your calculation of period of time would calculate the time between Departure and Return.

[orange]

I agree with Ray. Study some examples /tutorials on Normalization. Normalization will help you understand your data, and design your tables.
I would also suggest you write a short paragraph of what you want to do. I have a number of X that do Y on a regular frequency. I want to record the Z of each. Then on occasion calculate the difference between Standard vs. Actuals, over a period of time over various tracks.

Now none of us has any idea what exactly you're talking about. So you're going to have to "flesh out" Standards and Actuals, Tracks etc so that you can converse with us.

see the first few topics at http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/topic238.html
and work through the Entity Relationship diagramming with your data/subject matter.

Good luck with your project.