Hi all.
I make and send cards for birthdays and other occasions - Halloween, Christmas, etc.
I have a database with all the addresses I use so I can print labels as needed.
I started with an address table - each record being Last_Name, Spouse1_First, Spouse2_First, address, phone numbers, notes.
I have an occasions table that has the name of the occasion - Halloween - 2022, Christmas 2023 - Sent, Christmas 2023 - Recv, etc - and the date of the occasion.
Then, I have a linking table that has the PK from each of the above two tables. I also have a field in the linking table with a description of the card sent.
I can run reports that look like:
Valentine's Day - 2023 Halloween - 2023 Christmas 2023 - Sent Al & Amy Baker X X X Bill & Betty Jones X X John & Jill Smith X X
That all works fine.
Then I come to the birthdays. I decided that the occasion for all birthdays would be "Birthday - year." The date in the table is set to Jan 1st of that year. This way the birthday occasion is after the just passed Christmas and before Valentine's Day.
Originally, I would select a family - Bill & Betty Jones - add the Birthday occasion and then for the card description I would put "Betty - pink butterfly w/flowers, Bill - tool box fold-out". That works. Sometimes, I just send a card to one spouse - sending to Ginny but not Nick.
But then I decided I wanted a list of all the different birthday cards I sent in 2022.
As expected, I get:
Baker Amy - piano
Jones Betty - pink butterfly w/flowers, Bill - tool box fold-out
Smith John - tool box fold-out, Janice (daughter) purple kitty cupcake
I thought about pulling the individuals to a separate table and link the individual to a family. That way, I could track the birthday cards individually. Doing this would also allow me to add kids. Then I could even see who I've sent a particular card to -- like the tool box - fold-out card. Except, then how would I handle the cards that go to the whole family - like Christmas?
Thoughts? Ideas?
Thanks!
Susie
Kansas