Chaining autonumbering tables, and entering them in forms

[WadeL]

My apologies first off if this question is answered elsewhere (it probably is, as it seems basic), I just didn't have the vocabulary to find the answer it appears(or understand it, if I saw it). Feel free to redirect me to pre-existing stuff if you wish. I'm not sure if this more properly belongs in the forms forum, but I suspect my issues might go deeper than just the forms, so posting here, first.

Anyway, my issue is with autonumbering tables that are linked together. Basically, my problem is something like this:

I have one table, landowners, with the columns landowner_id(autonumber) and landowner_name representing, say, a bunch of landowners in this example.

I have another table, call it properties. With the columns property_id(autonumber), property_name, property_owner_id, and property_type_id.

My last table is property_types, with the coulmns property_type_id(autonumber) and property_type.

properties.property_owner_id and landowners.landowner_id are linked, as are properties.property_type_id and property_types.property_type_id. I represent all the properties a landowner might have by listing them all in the properties table, and giving them all the id of that landowner. Each individual property also has a property type, as well.



This seem like the proper way to set things up thus far? My actual application is much more complex, of course, but this is the basic approach.

Now, what I'd like to be able to do it have a form like:
Landowner Name:
Properties: Property Name - Property Type
Property Name - Property Type
Etc

I get my query set up, make a form out of it, all seems to work fine.

Except for the creating of new landowners - if I click on the form for a new record, I seem to run into problems with just entering a landowner name, all those property types and the like. I think it is an issue with autonumbering and the like and there being missing required fields(while I'm currently in the process of creating all those new records!).

Hopefully my example illustrates what I am trying to do. Help diagnosing the specific problems I am running into might be great, and I can provide more non-hypothetical information as you wish, but if there is a thread or tutorial telling me what I need to do to set this type of thing up from base principles too, that's perfectly fine by my books and might even be more useful. I've got a lot of programming experience, some SQL, but not a lot of Access experience, so my first impulse is just to do everything programatically but that strikes me as nullifying the advantages of throwing it together in Access.

[HiTechCoach]

Normally a a data entry a form should only use ONE table in hte record source query.

For your example the main or parent form will only have the land owners table.

You will use a sub form for the related table(s). In your example it would be properties. Set the master/child inking filed to:

Master: landowner_id
Child: property_owner_id


I would urge you to look at the Northwind sample database. It shows the basic of how to design forms in Access.