Re: book publishing database--design question about tabbed forms

Erin,

Building a database is like building a house... Once you have the walls up
modifications become very *expensive* so you really want to get that
foundation right in the begining. Here's a few places to look that might be
of help:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/accessjunkie/resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

A free tutorial written by Crystal (MS Access MVP):
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

As for autonumbers, no you can't change them as you desire they have a job
to do and they do which is count. However, they are subject to skipping for
various reasons sooooo, if you care about that Autonumber then best to
create your own, ie: DMax("YourPrimaryKey","YourTable") + 1

All in all you REALLY want to get that foundation right. So after you build
your tables you might want to come back and post what you've done, just to
be sure. But like all good plan, you should start with a pencil and papre,
large eraser and the above links!

--
Gina Whipp

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

"Erin" <Erin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BC112CE3-0697-43F3-A4BB-CE973FAD12CC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Steve,

Thanks for your advice. I think the design sounds good. But the question
then becomes: how easy is it to change the structure of a database once
it's
already underway? If I have the book title as the primary key in all five
tables, will I be able to change to autonumbers without much complication?
Are there any potential pitfalls to watch out for while making sweeping
structural changes? (Just recently I experimented with reconfiguration,
and
as a result of deleting a few table fields ended up creating a situation
in
which my query and tabbed form became essentially read-only--unable to be
updated/edited. I still haven't fully solved that one...) In your
experience,
is there anything like this that I should be aware of as I proceed?

MANY thanks for your help.

Erin



"Steve" wrote:

What do you think of this design .......

TblBook
BookID (autonumber)
BookTitle
<etc>

TblGeneralPublicationDetail
GeneralPublicationDetailID (autonumber)
BookID
<detail fields>

TblAcquisition
AcquisitionID (autonumber)
BookID
<acquistion fields>

TblMarketing
MarketingID (autonumber)
BookID
<marketing fields>

TblEditorialProduction
EditorialProductionID (autonumber)
BookID
<editorial/production fields>

TblRightPermission
RightPermissionID (autonumber)
BookID
<rights/permissions fields>

Where you are using Title as the primary, each record in each table
depends
on accurate typing of the title. A typing error would result in an error
in
the record. Access creates autonumbers and thus would eliminate this
possibile error in your database.

Your data entry form would consist of a form with 5 tabs. The main form
would be based on TblBook and each tab would contain a subform based on
one
of the other 5 tables. The Linkmaster/LinkChild properties of each
subform
would be BookID. In this arrangement, you would navigate to a selected
book
on the main form with the navigation buttons at the bottom left and then
click a desired tab. At each tab, you would find only the records for the
selected book in the main form.

Steve
santus@xxxxxxxx


"Erin" <Erin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B78075A7-BEB9-43BA-996B-C99EA2CE1E93@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I work for a small, university-style press. We publish about 12 to 15
books
per year, and I've been trying to build a database for us to keep track
of
five different categories of information pertaining to our publications
(general publication details, acquisitions, marketing,
editorial/production,
and rights/permissions). The way I set it up initially was as five
separate
tables (with book title as the primary key for all five). From these
five
tables I created a query--bringing all the fields together--out of
which I
created a tabbed form, so that for each book entry you can access all
five
categories of information in one place.

There have been a couple of glitches along the way, mostly having to do
with
the query, such that I've started to doubt whether I've gone about
designing
this database in the right way. The tabbed form seems ideal for our
purposes,
but I don't know if having five separate tables is the best choice
(maybe
I
should just have everything in one table, and create the tabbed form
out
of
that, so I can bypass having to use the query as the middle man?) Or
maybe
there is another design possibility that I'm just not aware of (my
Access
skills are by no means vast).

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be very grateful. I'd also be happy to
discuss
the particulars of my database in more detail, if that would help.

Thanks so much,

Erin





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