Re: Considering using Access

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From: Ken Snell (kthissnellis9_at_notcomcast.realnet)
Date: 05/14/04 

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 22:47:07 -0400

I recommend that you purchase a book on ACCESS as a starting point. A book
will give you good start on designing table structures, interacting with
data via forms, printing information via reports, etc.

I congratulate you heartily for taking time with paper and pencil to begin
planning out what the database will contain and what you want it to do. You
indeed will save hours of redesign and aggravation later by taking some
hours now to do this before you ever open a new database file.

May I encourage you to step back from the questions about how will you
update the table (macro / VBA / etc.) and how you'll pass info
along....instead, first focus heavily on designing the tables so that you'll
store the right data in the right format in the right way. From there,
questions about how to do these specific things will easily come and flow.

ACCESS will be a good tool for what you want to do....but do note that,
unlike most other Office software programs, ACCESS will "demand" a lot of
upfront learning time (and frustration) from you as you begin to master
it -- it is not just an "out of the box and set it up" program. As you climb
the mountain of learning, each new idea will become easier, and then, all of
a sudden, you'll be breezing along!

Your note does not give us sufficient details to understand what you want to
"do" with the different days, different people, etc. It sounds as if you are
mixing customers and sales information? May I suggest that your first step
is to fully define the data types that you want to store in ACCESS, such as
    - customer number, name, information
    - taxi vehicle number, type, location
    - taxi ride pickup location, dropoff location, fare amount, day of taxi
ride
    - payment amount, payment date

and so on. Consider every possible type of information that you conceivably
would want to capture / know about your business ... and keep in the back of
your mind that you'll think of more things later on, no matter how many you
think of now.

Use these newsgroups to bounce ideas about table design and structure --
about how to interact with the data in order to accomplish / display /
report / update specific things -- and so on. You're embarking on a
challenging, but a rewarding, adventure...one all of us here have begun and
are still on! 

-- 
        Ken Snell
<MS ACCESS MVP>
"Joe Rivera" <latteralus@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:F801148E-28EA-4B26-82DB-0E4C7C3FE9BD@microsoft.com...
> I own and operate a taxi company in CT and need to computerize my
operation. A friend has suggested using access to store our accounts,
reservations, print reports, etc. I am currently using Access 2000 and have
been studying it alot lately trying to figure whether or not my needs can be
met using Access.
>
> I have been plannning this all out ahead of time on paper so that I can
look at what my needs are and will be in the future in an attempt to save
myself some agrivation when or if I try to make this work.
>
> Basically what I am looking for is an application that can be networked in
small office, I have 2 phone operators, one dispatcher, I need the jobs the
operators are entering into a form to automatically update in the form the
dispatcher is using, so that he will have up to date information. I will
also need a variety of reports, including a "snapshot" report, showing jobs
in a specific time frame so that he can plan his day more efficiently. This
seems to be alot of work, but alot of work in not my problem...
>
> As of right now, it seems as though this can be done with Access, the
problem I am having is when I try to determine how the customer records
table will work. I am thinking each customer will be assigned a number,
which will continuously grow (autonumber), however, my problem is that
certain people use our service everyday, some only on Mondays, or Tuesday,
etc. Would using a macro be the best way to accomplish that, or would an
action query be more effective? Can I have either of those functions
automatically insert the information desired by perimeters I set in the
query and also change the date to the current date? Also... I need some
advise as to how I should plan out my customer table, should each customer
using the service have a identifying number? But how will I link alternate
trips together, people going certain days, etc.
>
> I need help, any suggestions are much appreciated.
>
> Joe

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