Create Excel-like view in Access form

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Guest

I am trying to make a form for some teachers to use to enter student grades.
They are used to having 2 or 3 days / assignments as columns and all students
as rows in their electronic grade book. Now I have taken the data from Excel
and put it into Access in normallized tables with a Student (1) - to Many
(Grades) (actually it is more tables but this is the general idea). I
created a form for the teachers that is like a grade book with a single
day/assignment for all students. It is fine but the teachers are slow to
change and want to see multiple days/columns for each student. I can easily
display multiple columns for several assignments in a week but I can't figure
out how to create a dataset that allows them to edit. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Margaret
 
I think, from what I read, that the problem you are facing is that it would
take multiple rows from a table to create the view you want. That would make
it an uneditable recordset. There are a couple of options to consider.
One Option:
Create a table that would be the underlying data for a continuous form.
Programmactically load the data into the table, allow the user to enter data,
then programmatically load the data from that table into your normalized
tables.
Another Option:
Since the users are used to Excel, allow them to continue using it. You
could load data int a spreadsheet for them to use, then import and edit the
data after they have completed thier grading.
 
Thanks for the quick response. The first option - create a table to
temporarily hold the data while they edit it - is the way I usually handle a
multiple record display. I thought it was a little slow and had the
potential to create data integrity problems. Usually there would be only one
teacher editing a data set at a time so it is extremely unlikely for a second
teacher or administrator to try to edit the data at the same time - but it
still concerns me. I guess I should put some kind of flag on the original
data set while it is being copied/edited /copied back to let other uses know
that the data in the table is currently read-only. Any ideas on how to do
that?

Thanks again.
 
If there's a possibility that multiple users could interfere with each
other, then clearly you have to restructure the way you are handling your
multiuser database. It should be split, with the tables and relationships
(aka back end) on a shared folder on the server and each user should have
their own copy of queries, forms, reports, macros, and modules (aka front
end) on their own machine, or each have their own copy on their private disk
storage on the server. Thar way, you create the temporary table in the
user's own copy of the front end, and there's no possibility of problems due
to interference.

There's an introductory presentation on Access in a Multiuser Environment
that I did for my user group that you can download from
http://appdevissues.tripod.com. It will identify topics that I thought
worthwhile to discuss, and a bit more. The best collection of detailed
information and links on the subject of Access in the multiuser environment
is at MVP Tony Toews' site, http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
 
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