looking for help access/excel

[cusefan75]

Hello all,

im new to access but have a little experience with excel and was wondering if someone could lead me down the right path for what i'm trying to accomplish.

What i'm trying to do is setup something in either (or both) excel or access.
I'm trying to make a database where a user can search for a serial number (or a circuit id) and once they pull that up, it then queries everything listed under that specific number and then breaks it down even further by segments and after selecting a segment it shows everything under that segment.

Maybe a real life example will be more sufficient.

Say that i have an analog bridge that has a specific circuit id and the only difference between 30 different locations/id's is the end portion thats composed of letters.. (for example, i have circuits labeled 99/xxxx/999999/xxxx/A thru 99/xxxx/999999/xxxx/U, etc). What i want to do is find that circuit id (the 999999) out of a list of like 20 other id's. Now, say that i have 3 different segments on that circuit, one going to small town usa, one going to rural america, and one going to BFE and each of those segments carries different legs of this bridge. For example, lets say that rural america is comprised of legs a,c,d,f,g and small town has b,e,h,i, etc.
I want to be able to input my data to show those towns carry each of those legs (circuits) and want it to where when someone pulls up that ckt id (999999) and then selects that specific location that it displays what legs are on that specific portion. Have i confued the hell out of everyone?? Its kind of hard to explain without going into details which i cant really divulge.

I mean i know i can get by easy and just name different tabs on excel and then under each tab (circuit id) just make columns labeled 1, 2, and 3 and then just list each leg underneath of that but i was hoping to try something different with access. If i havent confused you, i'd really appreciate some input..

thanks,

Scott..

[Ted C]

I'm trying to make a database where a user can search for a serial number (or a circuit id) and once they pull that up, it then queries everything listed under that specific number and then breaks it down even further by segments and after selecting a segment it shows everything under that segment.

Access should be good for this.

In general, you should have a table based on Serial Number (or Circuit ID) that only contains information unique to a serial number. The primary key of the Serial Number table will be a foreign key in the Segment table

The Segment table will reference the primary key of the Serial Number table, tying every segment to a Serial Number. It will also contain information that is unique to a segment. The primary key of the Segment table will be a foreign key for tables that have multiple entries connected to a segment.

Does that make sense?