List Box vs. Check Box

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hi, I have seen a number of posts on list boxes but still am not sure if
this is the way I should go. I am supposed to build an Incident Tracking
Database. Each incident will need to record (among other things) Loss Type,
Direct Cause, Indirect Cause, Program Improvements. For each of these you
may select one option or many. I initially set up 4 tables and was going to
create List Boxes with multiselect. I do need to record each selection (back
to the main table???) and report on them (ie. how many losses were "fingers"
for the year, or "toes"....).

I am wondering if this is the correct solution, or would it be easier/better
to just create a number of yes/no fields that I could then put as checkboxes
on the form?
 
Carrie,

Which is "better" as a data input method really depends on the complexity of
your data, and how often more than one selection might be made from a
listbox. Checkboxes have the advantage of greater visibility, and the
disadvantage of taking up more room.

Understand, however, that BOTH methods represent the data in a
non-normalized form, i.e., there are natural one-to-many relationships
between Incident (the one side) and Incident Loss Types, Incident Direct
Causes, Incident Indirect Causes, and Incident Program Improvements,
suggesting continuous subforms based on a detail table for each, linked by
the Incident table's primary key, using a combo box for each entry:

Incidents
---------------
IncidentNumber AutoNumber or Integer (PK)
.... other incident-specific fields

IncidentDirectCauses
------------------------
IDCID AutoNumber (PK)
IncidentNumber Integer (Foreign Key to Incidents table)
DirectCauseID Integer (Foreign Key to DirectCauses table)

.... similarly for the other three detail tables...

I might further simplify the system by using a single detail table with an
additional field that identifies the entry as a DirectCause, IndirectCause,
Loss Type, or Program Improvement:

IncidentDetail
--------------------
IDID AutoNumber (PK)
IncidentNumber Integer (FK to Incidents Table)
DetailTypeID Integer (FK to DetailTypes)
DetailID Integer (FK to Details)

Having a single detail table simplifies obtaining aggregate information.

If you choose to implement the list box or checkbox form as a data entry
method, I would recommend the above normalized table structures. You will
then need code to post the user's selections to the detail tables.

Hope that helps.
Sprinks
 
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