Re: Questionnaire

From: Duane Hookom (duanehookom_at_NoSpamHotmail.com)
Date: 03/30/04 

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 14:50:31 -0600

If you want varying types of input and the ability to view more than one
question at a time, then you will have to use a very long form (or tab form)
with lots of code and multiple sets of repeating controls. The code would
basically read the questions from the survey as well as a field that
describes the interface type. Based on this, you could loop through controls
and set properties.

There are limits to the number of controls on a form (or report) so you may
hit a wall and have to use subforms.

I guess that I would try to do this without creating any new tables. A field
attached to each question that describes the input format would be all that
might be necessary. 

-- 
Duane Hookom
MS Access MVP
--
"Basil" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B37C04DA-5446-4B65-ACE2-49F06AA820B8@microsoft.com...
> And what a great system At Your Survey is too...
>
> Given the way I am, if it can be done as my mind pictures it... then
that's what I'll try and do, even if it does take 90% more effort.
>
> So, given this, would you agree that the following process is appropriate?
>
> - User interface populates both the normal respondents table (name etc) as
well as the answers into a temporary table (with 1 field per question).
> - After data fully entered, a 'Submit' control on form is pressed which
will take the temporary answer data from the seperate fields and shove them
into the main responses table - with 1 record per answer.
> - The temporary data is deleted.
>
> Given that I want a user interface with varying input types (eg some with
option buttons, others with textboxes), should I continue with this method?
>
> If so, have you got any suggestions on an easy way to convert the data
across (2nd point)?
>
> Thanks loads for all the time and thought you've given to me,
>
> Basil
>
>      ----- Duane Hookom wrote: -----
>
>      The whole idea of my application was to save the ton of work that
would be
>      required if each question was a field. Your user interface does not
have to
>      match how your data is stored. That's why I suggested the temp table
that
>      might be used.
>
>      Also, if you create a paper report of the survey, you can do lots of
>      formatting changes on individual detail records.
>
>      I am not fully aware of your requirements or how much time you want
to spend
>      customizing forms etc. At Your Survey was designed to use 90% of the
>      creativity/design, 20% of the effort to get 90% of the results.
>
>      -- 
>      Duane Hookom
>      MS Access MVP
>
>
>      "Basil" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>      news:8956DE59-9CEA-4FF4-AF92-E17DC1AFB085@microsoft.com...
>      > Hi Duane/Roger/whoever is kind enough to try and help me,
>      >> I've been testing out plenty more things... and I see what you
were
>      getting at Duane.
>      >> It's damned difficult to get a relational survey db (with 1 record
per
>      question answered) when you want the questions to be different in
terms of
>      entry method (option buttons/free text fields/comboboxes etc).
>      >> So basically I have come to the conclusion that I can do 1 of 2
things:
>      >> 1. make the reponse table a field for each question and a record
for each
>      respondent.
>      >> 2. have a temporary table as in 1. that is then appended to the
usual 1
>      row per question method.  This would mean looking at historic
responses
>      could not be done on the normal *** which I can live with.
>      >> Could you please tell me if you think I'm right or if there is
another
>      option?
>      >> If there are no better options, I would guess that you will say
choose
>      option 2 - could you explain to me how the layout of 2 is better than
1?  I
>      managed to cope fine in the past manipulating data as set out in 1
for
>      graphs etc.
>      >> Thank you,
>      >> Basil
>
>
>