Generic Contacts, Addresses

  • Thread starter Thread starter George
  • Start date Start date
G

George

(I suspect I should have asked this question before
spending hours doing what I'm now ask about).

Outlook has a beautiful Contacts database and related user
interface. One can link to the Outlook contact table in
Access, but that is not what I need. I need to keep my
own table of Contact-like info in Access, not in Outlook.

I spent half the day building a generic table and form
that looks and works like Outlook's Contact screen.

Now, (now?!) I'm wondering:
Has anyone already emulated this Outlook form using Access?


Alternatively, I have a couple of questions about design:

a) The Outlook Contact table supports three addresses:
Business, Home, and Other. The Check Addresses form shows
street, city, state, etc., broken out as separate fields;
I'm guessing that Outlook stores it this way and combines
the fields for display. Question: Can I create a field in
my table that represents the combined concatonated address
fields: Business Address = [Business Address Street] &
crlf & [Business Address PO Box]& crlf & [Business Address
City], etc. (I can do it in the form, of course).

b) Do you think the Outlook application is storing all
those addresses in a single unnormalized table as implied
from the list of fields displayed in Outlook Contact "All
Fields" tab, with "All Contact fields" selected.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
 
George said:
(I suspect I should have asked this question before
spending hours doing what I'm now ask about).

Outlook has a beautiful Contacts database and related user
interface. One can link to the Outlook contact table in
Access, but that is not what I need. I need to keep my
own table of Contact-like info in Access, not in Outlook.

I spent half the day building a generic table and form
that looks and works like Outlook's Contact screen.

Now, (now?!) I'm wondering:
Has anyone already emulated this Outlook form using Access?


Alternatively, I have a couple of questions about design:

a) The Outlook Contact table supports three addresses:
Business, Home, and Other. The Check Addresses form shows
street, city, state, etc., broken out as separate fields;
I'm guessing that Outlook stores it this way and combines
the fields for display. Question: Can I create a field in
my table that represents the combined concatonated address
fields: Business Address = [Business Address Street] &
crlf & [Business Address PO Box]& crlf & [Business Address
City], etc. (I can do it in the form, of course).

b) Do you think the Outlook application is storing all
those addresses in a single unnormalized table as implied
from the list of fields displayed in Outlook Contact "All
Fields" tab, with "All Contact fields" selected.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Click to expand...

Take a look at one of the pre-made databases.
File > New > Templates on My Computer > Databases > Contact Management
Might be just what you need and it's ready to use.

gls858
 
Outlook appears to use a 'flat file' data design rather than a 'realtional
design'

A better design is

(1) Contact has (Many) addresses (home, work, vacation cottage, villa in
Tuscany, etc)
(1) Contact has (Many) telephone numbers (home, work, home cell, office
cell, work fax, home fax, answering service)
(1) Telephone Type has many telephone numbers
(1) Address Type has many addresses

So we should have at least the following tables

Contacts (ContactID [primarykey], firstname, lastname, other stuff about the
person)
Contact_Telephones(ContactTelephoneID [primaryKey], ContactID [foreign key],
TelephoneTypeID [foreign key],Number,(maybe precedence order desired to
call)
Contact_Addresses (ContactAddressIDprimaryKey], ContactID [foreign key],
Address_TypeID [foreign key] , AddressLine1, AddressLine2, City, State, Zip
(for United States, may vary if you have to handle UK or European addresses)
Telephone_Type (Telephone_TypeID [primary key], Telephone_Type)
Address_Type (Address_TypeID [primary key], AddressType)

Then a set of forms to maintail all of the above.
Then a set of reports to print out a personal phone book.


Ahhh, also may want to handle email addresses and/or web pages and/or
.............. :>


Hope this helps

Ed Warren.
 
Yes, I looked at those.
You might call this an exercise.
I'm trying to emulate the Outlook Contacts form using
Access. Do you care to speculate on how Outlook lays out
its table (or tables) based on my question, b), below?

-----Original Message-----
George said:
(I suspect I should have asked this question before
spending hours doing what I'm now ask about).

Outlook has a beautiful Contacts database and related user
interface. One can link to the Outlook contact table in
Access, but that is not what I need. I need to keep my
own table of Contact-like info in Access, not in Outlook.

I spent half the day building a generic table and form
that looks and works like Outlook's Contact screen.

Now, (now?!) I'm wondering:
Has anyone already emulated this Outlook form using Access?


Alternatively, I have a couple of questions about design:

a) The Outlook Contact table supports three addresses:
Business, Home, and Other. The Check Addresses form shows
street, city, state, etc., broken out as separate fields;
I'm guessing that Outlook stores it this way and combines
the fields for display. Question: Can I create a field in
my table that represents the combined concatonated address
fields: Business Address = [Business Address Street] &
crlf & [Business Address PO Box]& crlf & [Business Address
City], etc. (I can do it in the form, of course).

b) Do you think the Outlook application is storing all
those addresses in a single unnormalized table as implied
from the list of fields displayed in Outlook Contact "All
Fields" tab, with "All Contact fields" selected.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Click to expand...

Take a look at one of the pre-made databases.
File > New > Templates on My Computer > Databases > Contact Management
Might be just what you need and it's ready to use.

gls858
.
Click to expand...
 
Thank you, Ed.
Very thorough consideration
That will be helpfull

George

-----Original Message-----
Outlook appears to use a 'flat file' data design rather than a 'realtional
design'

A better design is

(1) Contact has (Many) addresses (home, work, vacation cottage, villa in
Tuscany, etc)
(1) Contact has (Many) telephone numbers (home, work, home cell, office
cell, work fax, home fax, answering service)
(1) Telephone Type has many telephone numbers
(1) Address Type has many addresses

So we should have at least the following tables

Contacts (ContactID [primarykey], firstname, lastname, other stuff about the
person)
Contact_Telephones(ContactTelephoneID [primaryKey], ContactID [foreign key],
TelephoneTypeID [foreign key],Number,(maybe precedence order desired to
call)
Contact_Addresses (ContactAddressIDprimaryKey], ContactID [foreign key],
Address_TypeID [foreign key] , AddressLine1, AddressLine2, City, State, Zip
(for United States, may vary if you have to handle UK or European addresses)
Telephone_Type (Telephone_TypeID [primary key], Telephone_Type)
Address_Type (Address_TypeID [primary key], AddressType)

Then a set of forms to maintail all of the above.
Then a set of reports to print out a personal phone book.


Ahhh, also may want to handle email addresses and/or web pages and/or
.............. :>


Hope this helps

Ed Warren.

(I suspect I should have asked this question before
spending hours doing what I'm now ask about).

Outlook has a beautiful Contacts database and related user
interface. One can link to the Outlook contact table in
Access, but that is not what I need. I need to keep my
own table of Contact-like info in Access, not in Outlook.

I spent half the day building a generic table and form
that looks and works like Outlook's Contact screen.

Now, (now?!) I'm wondering:
Has anyone already emulated this Outlook form using Access?


Alternatively, I have a couple of questions about design:

a) The Outlook Contact table supports three addresses:
Business, Home, and Other. The Check Addresses form shows
street, city, state, etc., broken out as separate fields;
I'm guessing that Outlook stores it this way and combines
the fields for display. Question: Can I create a field in
my table that represents the combined concatonated address
fields: Business Address = [Business Address Street] &
crlf & [Business Address PO Box]& crlf & [Business Address
City], etc. (I can do it in the form, of course).

b) Do you think the Outlook application is storing all
those addresses in a single unnormalized table as implied
from the list of fields displayed in Outlook Contact "All
Fields" tab, with "All Contact fields" selected.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
 
Outlook appears to use a 'flat file' data design rather than a 'realtional
design'
Click to expand...

In addition, there's a complicated relationship between the many
"fields" that Outlook exposes in the user interface and its object
model, and the rather fewer fields that it actually stores. When you
edit one field in the user interface, Outlook is often actually parsing
what you type into different underlying fields - and not infrequently
doing it wrong. Not a model to be emulated, IMO!
 
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