Proper form design and data capture

[hect1c]

Hi Access Experts,



I am in the process of re-designing an Events(conferences, seminars, etc) and evaluations database in MS Access 2010 database that did not take advantage of the strengths MS Access offers. My next task is creating forms.

Previously all related event information went into one table Activities. So the data entry form was pretty straightforward. The author of this database used checkboxes so the user could select many options for specific categories. For example:

Activity Includes information on:
-blah1
-blah2
-blah3
-blah4
-blah5

The user could then select a checkbox for all blah's or just blah1, blah2 and blah3. Previously each blah was a column in the activities table and each activity stored a value of true or false.

After I modified it, I created an Activities table with no categories for blah's and linked it to a new category table for blahs(and corresponding activity ID), which then could store a value for each blah. So the category table for blah's could have 3 records for one activity which might have values blah1, blah2, blah3.

In terms of data entry is a checkbox suitable capturing these types of categories? If a user has to tick so many check boxes I am giving them too much flexibility and/or does this mean data capture needs to be looked at in a different way.

When I display records in a form for a user to browse can they view them as they are entered in a check box or do they have to be displayed in a datasheet type view?

Thank you.

[June7]

Should probably have at least 3 tables.

tblActivites

tblCategories

tblActivityCategories

Options for data entry:

1. form bound to tblActivies and subform bound to tblActivityCategories with combobox to select category

2. form bound to tblCategories and subform bound to tblActivityCategories with combobox to select activity

3. one form bound to tblActivityCategories with comboboxes to select activity and category