Adding multiple entries to a form

  • Thread starter Thread starter sarahz11
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sarahz11

Hi and thanks for help in advance, I feel I should know this and I'm sorry
for asking.

I have a simple form for "continuous improvement ideas" that has things such
as a topic, who entered it, the date, what internal documents will be
affected, etc.

What I need on the "bottom" of each entry is the ability for different
people at different times to be able to add a "discussion" which would be an
idea of how to fix such issue that needs improvement. I need them to press
some button and have their idea be entered and linked to that one entry, then
put their name and date.

How the heck do I do this?

THANKS!
 
It sounds like you are describing a one-to-many relationship. That is, one
"topic" could have zero, one or many "suggestions".

In a relational database like Access, you do that by first creating a table
to hold the suggestions... it might look something like:

tblSuggestion
SuggestionID
TopicID (a foreign key, pointing back to your tblTopic -- what was
the topic?)
PersonID (a foreign key, pointing back to your tblPerson -- who had
this suggestion?)
SuggestionDate (?a date/time field, with Now() as a DefaultValue?)
Suggestion

Good luck!

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or pseudocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.
 
Sorry, got carried away with the data portion *(it does all start with the
data, though)*...

Use a main form/subform construction.

Put the Topics in the main form.

Create another form that lists suggestions, then embed it as a subform in
the main form.

Open the main form in design view, select the subform control, open its
properties, and set the "parent" and "child" fields to the TopicID.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

--
Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or pseudocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
guarantee as to suitability.

You can thank the FTC of the USA for making this disclaimer
possible/necessary.
 
Hi and thanks for help in advance, I feel I should know this and I'm sorry
for asking.

I have a simple form for "continuous improvement ideas" that has things such
as a topic, who entered it, the date, what internal documents will be
affected, etc.

What I need on the "bottom" of each entry is the ability for different
people at different times to be able to add a "discussion" which would be an
idea of how to fix such issue that needs improvement. I need them to press
some button and have their idea be entered and linked to that one entry, then
put their name and date.

How the heck do I do this?

THANKS!
Click to expand...

You need at least two Tables. It sounds like you've made the very common
mistake of starting your design with Forms. Forms don't store data; Tables do,
and Forms are just a tool, a window to manage the data.

I'd see a structure with (at least) three tables:

ImprovementIdeas
IdeaID <autonumber primary key>
Topic <text>
EnteredBy <llink to Employees EmployeeID>
DateEntered <date/time, default =Now()>
Idea <Memo>

Employees
EmployeeID
LastName
FirstName
<other biographical data>

Discussion
DiscussionID <autonumber primary key>
IdeaID <link to ImprovementIdeas>
EnteredBy <link to EmployeeID>
DateEntered (date/time, default =Now()>
Response <Memo>


A Form based on ImprovementIdeas, with a Subform based on Discussion, using
IdeaID as the master/child link field will let you enter an idea and any
number of responses. You could have a combo box on each form to allow the user
to enter their own employee ID (selecting by their name), or this could be
automated with a bit more work.
 
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