Trying to make form to check in and check out equipment

[Marc76]

I could almost Cry. I did have to change the MRCheckout info to the subform, but after doing that ALL Info is showing up as I want it and reporting as I want it. I will NEVER AGAIN do this under the threat of being fired I will say NO! HAHAHAHAH

Thank you again for your help. You Dont know how much pressure just was taken off me.

On a a side note. I really did like learning some of this and getting a "handle" on some of access. but The number one thing I found out is that there is a HORRIBLE selection of learning tools out there. I tried Lynda.com, I tried Youtube, I look all over for any kind of tutorials that do more than show you how to make a table, a form for your your recipes, and a query to lookup the date of a CD in your library.

Where does one go to find out the stuff YOU helped me with and get to the point that The mess can be cleaned up. I mean Other than you coming to my office, I wouldnt know how to find help. Well, that is without taking a what, $12k DBA course.

Anyway. Gosh O' Mighty I thank you.

I would say I would recommend you and this site to people, but gosh you may just shut the site down from that kind of threat. LOL

Well Happy New Year and a grand Ol CHEERS!

[Marc76]

You know I was thinking. I hope you dont shoot me. I was looking at my profile and it shows me using Access 2010. The other day I did check and found out I am actually on Access 07. I don't know if maybe that is why some of the return values you sent me came up with blank columns or not. That's my fault I forgot to mention it when I found out.

[rpeare]

version has nothing to do with your data. Your data was the problem.

[ssanfu]

PMFJI,

You are getting excellent help from rpeare, but I was looking at your dB last night and have a few comments.

I would suggest re-working your table structure and relationships.
* I don't have A2010 at work, but I remember there were two tables that have serial number and description fields.
* I think the "EquipmentSubform" table is not necessary and is causing problems.
* The "Location" table has a field for "JobNumber"..... How does "JobNumber" relate to location? I would think the job number field would be in the equipment history table.

I was having a hard time understanding why your Check Out form had Employee in the main form and the equipment selection was in the subform. One employee could check out many pieces of equipment. (right??)

Since you don't really care who checks the equipment back in, I would have the "Check In" form be by equipment that does not have a check in date. To me, that would be much simpler.

If you are interested in seeing what I have changed, I can post the dB tonight...

My $0.02 .......

[Marc76]

PMFJI,

Thank you for your response. I agree that the subform should be unnecessary. It was unfortunate that I did not have someone close by to me to help show me the best ways to build this, and I said the only things I could find were the basic db building type information from Lynda.com, and some Forums. I really hoped I could use the MSFT template desktop library or asset tracker, I just tried and tried and did more damage than anything. Unfortunately I am going out on assignment leaving today until May. So my time was deadlined yesterday. I really liked learning this stuff, and wish there was a good place to get the proper education on it. IF I had the time I would for sure take your information and play some more and try to clean it up. As both rpeare and yourself mentioned that the subform is complicating it and making it more of a mess than use, I am more certain than ever that I was lead down the wrong path on the structure of the db. I definitely would like to see how it SHOULD have been done.

I do own my own business that requires a lengthy catalog of things and will at some point be building my own db for the business. I would like it if I could find a way to learn the right way to go about all this for that.

As far as this db is concerned I have turned it over to the engineer in charge of the equipment, and he is going to play around with it, of course, and see how to roll it into the system in place, which can do nothing but check items out as a POS, using the sales inventory template from MSFT. This whole thing came about when we had a group of jobs come in at once and no one could say where the equipment was. It took two days and the entire staff to track down where it all was, and even then there was a lot unaccounted for.

It is now in his hands to make it all work.

I really would however like to see what you did, for my education, to see how it could be done better. I love to learn!

Again thank you for your help.

[ssanfu]

Attached is the modified dB... remember it is just me playing around with what you provided..... It still needs a lot of work.

As for developing a dB, I have found that, for me, I make more progress by using pencil and paper (or sticky pads / whiteboard) to layout my fields and tables. It takes several iterations before I even begin to think about creating tables. I go through the normalization process a few times in the development of the tables and relationships. Then I sketch out the forms to see how the flow might work (data entry / looking up data / etc). And I sketch some of the reports. A lot of the time, the output dictates what fields (input) are required.

There are tutorials at Roger Carlson's site that should help:
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/f...108912037.html



PS ... PMFJI stands for "Pardon me for jumping in". rpeare was helping you and I wanted to post, but didn't want to step in his toes.
I have learned a few things by reading his (rpeare) posts.