Form design ideas requested

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sarah Wagner
  • Start date Start date
S

Sarah Wagner

I'm wondering if someone could give me ideas on the most
efficient/effective way to design a form with the
following needs.

I've got several students taking up to 10 classes. For
each class, I pay one of two departments (there's no split
in $ between the depts.). I need to track class name,
semester taken, amount paid/to whom, and to have it all
add up at the bottom.

It seems easy enough to just have 10 rows of boxes, like a
table, with the info for each class/semester/amt/dept on
each line. To do this, I'm guessing I would go into the
original table and list out
entries "course1" "semester1" "amt1", etc, but I feel like
I might be missing some shortcuts.

Ideas?
 
You have a good question here.

I will suggest that you don't try and make 10 rows of boxes.

The reasons why here is then it becomes VERY difficult to do searching. What
student took what class? When you try and do a search, you will have to
check 10 fields. Very messy.

Further, if you design a solution that works correctly for 2 classes, or 20
classes, then it is less work. It is not so much that you *know* that 10
classes max is the problem, but if you design for "n" classes, then you will
have much more flexibility. Perhaps a student cancels, or changes a class,
and you want to keep a record of this fact. It is conceivable that more then
10 sets of data might be needed in that case.

So, the solution is to create another table and relate it "back" to the main
table. This is the very essence of a relational database.

With that related table, you thus only to define "one set" of the fields
like:

class semester amount dept main_id


With the above, you can then have the sub-form show all of the records in a
spreadsheet (grid) and even have a total at the bottom for you. You can do
all of the above and even the total with NO code if you use another table.
Further, notice how you only define the set of fields ONCE and then add one
new record for each class taken.

Try reading up the following stuff to get an idea here:

ACC2002: Database Normalization Basics
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283878

Database Normalization Tips by Luke Chung
http://www.fmsinc.com/tpapers/genaccess/databasenorm.html

Data Normalization Fundamentals by Luke Chung
http://www.fmsinc.com/tpapers/datanorm/index.html

324613 - Support WebCast: Database Normalization Basics
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=324613
 
do you have your tables/relationships fully configured?
that setup comes first, before form design, and will have
a major inpact on how you design the data entry form.
 
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