Using a pop-up form to enter data into line item subform

[Mbroeth]

Hi all, I am still learning with access and I am working on a Quote/ order database. I have a Quote form with a line item subform. My problem is our products are custom built so in addition to various products there are hundreds of sizes combinations for each product all with there own price. I will have over 2500 product codes. Also, different products will require different input information. With this in mind, I will not be able to simply have a combo box that the user selects the product, I need to narrow down the choices.

I currently have for Line Items [Type, Quantity, Code, Product, Description, Price]. My idea was to have the user select from one of 4 types in the first combo box then click a button that launches a tabbed popup form that the user can enter necessary info for that line item and further narrow down options using cascading combo boxes. Then the user would hit a close button on that form and the info would be sent to the fields of the line item form.



I have this started but can't make it work right. My popup details form's record source is set to the same table as the Line Item form. But it seems like this is causing a problem because I start a new line item record with the line item form then jump to the detail from to continue editing the same record then back to Line Item form to finish the record. Is this the wrong way to go about it? Should the Details go to a separate table that has a one to one relationship with the line Items?

Any input would help, Thanks!

[Bob Fitz]

Why use a popup form? Why not just have the cascading combo boxes on your subform?

[mike60smart]

Hi

Use an Unbound Form to filter to your requirements and then Insert your results into the required table

[Mbroeth]

Hi

Use an Unbound Form to filter to your requirements and then Insert your results into the required table

The problem would be if the criteria is not stored anywhere, if they were to click back into the popup to edit the data, they would be starting over, correct?

[Mbroeth]

Why use a popup form? Why not just have the cascading combo boxes on your subform?

In order to collect all the necessary info for every type of line item, I would need about 18 fields. I'm not sure how to make that work on the subform. Also, depending on the type of product, different info is necessary. Even if I stuck all 18 fields in the subform, I think it would be confusing which ones the user needs to populate for a given product type. That's why I was looking to have a popup that is tabbed, so the user could select the tab that corresponds to the product type that they are entering, and they would only be presented with the necessary fields.

Do you have another idea?

[mike60smart]

Hi

You should use an Unbound Form with a number of Unbound Controls which enable to to obtain the data required. Fot items that are not currently available then again you use an Unbound Control to enter text manually.

Once you are happy that you have all requirements then Insert to the required table.