Filter Query combobox options

[dhannant]

I created a form that has about 8 different filter options that can be used to filter a query. I used the filter by form table to set it all up and I can get each of them to work individually as well as 2 work together... but as soon as I added the information for the 3rd, I stopped getting results... infact nothing happens. Even with the code for all 3 and selecting just 1 option, nothing happens any more.

I have
cbopersonnel that is supposed to look up values in 4 different personnel columns


cboshift that looks up all shift work
cboworkdef that looks up what the job was (just a title)

Having just 2 in the filter by form works great, but adding 3 screws everything up. And I'm not talking about selecting all three (I know that would limit the output more) but I mean, with all 3 setup and selecting shift as "nights"... nothing gets filtered anymore. I have cbopersonnel on "look for" tab and everything else is on the next "or" tab. I tried to set it up on individual tabs but access combined it. I also tried adding cboshift to the "or" tab with everything else and access sent it back to "look for". All of the cbo references are under their respective search area... so in the table, the shift column has the cboshift lookup value. Is it just because I'm not using quotes around the cbo output? That doesn't make sense to me though. Anyway below is the lookup value for the cboshift.

[Forms]![Log Book Lookup]![cboshift]

thanks for any help.

[June7]

Advise not to build lookups in table. http://access.mvps.org/access/lookupfields.htm

If you are applying same filter criteria to 4 fields, sounds like non-normalized structure.

I have never used filter by form. I prefer http://www.allenbrowne.com/ser-62.html

How could Access 'combine' tabs?

[dhannant]

Interesting... well none of the combo boxes are bound to anything so it isn't overwriting data (double checked that). But I might go with your ser-62 recommendation. That sounds better. The structure is a bit... unrefined I guess you could say. This is my first data base set up and functionality has been added at users requests. Originally it was just a personnel database that stored a bunch of information... then it grew, and I'm sure more experianced DBers would puke at the setup (but it does work very nicely and all my users so far are happy).

As far as how access combined tabs... you got me. I have no clue. I was a bit confused myself. If you look into the filter by form, the bottom has that "or" tab. Once you start using the first one another one pops up next to it so you can add a new or statement, but as I said, when i did that, closed the view and reopened, all of the tabs were now on one single tab. Why? I have no idea. Maybe access knew it was just simpler to do it on one tab?!? Either way... it's what happened.