Re: to normailise or not?

I recommend that you normalize. Either
-get used to entering grades in a continuous subform or
-append to a wider temp table like you are doing or
-create a grid-like unbound form that uses code to display and save values

--
Duane Hookom
MS Access MVP
--


"Howard" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:lMudncxS4NHNFtjenZ2dnUVZ8qidnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi,
> I have the perenial student marks database problem which I'm trying to
> solve for the third time in a simple way.
>
> In a nutshell, one table of students, one of student-classes, one of class
> assignments and one of students-class-assignment marks
> one class = many students, one class = many assignments, one assignment
> one mark.
>
> The question is to do with ease of data entry. I'd like it to look like a
> spread*** with names in col A and each assignmenmt in the other columns
>
> A) If I hold the marks in one table (one per field i.e. unnormailised) and
> the students in another, linked by student ID I cannot add new marks into
> the table via a form as there are not yet any records in the marks table
> that match student IDs in the student table.
>
> B) If I nornalise and have the marks in a table such as MARKS(studentID,
> AssignmentID, ClassID, Mark) then the only way I can show all the marks
> for each student in a nice grid is using a crosstab query. This looks nice
> but also does not allow adding new marks as the dataset is not updatable.
>
> In Excel its easy, one row per student, one column for name, other columns
> for marks - How can I duplicate this idea in Access without having to see
> only one student at a time with a subform of all their assignments?
>
> Howard
>
> PS The only way I've found before is to have a temp table laid out like a
> spread*** into which marks were entered ,then using code I extracted
> marks and appended them one at at time to a normalised table. Surely
> there must be a better way.
>


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