New design

[Jimmy]

I have been requested to design a data base for our local
church to include Householder names, Occupations, Area of
Help, Children's details including name of school etc.

Is there a model (relational)available anywhere that I
can work from? I could create a main table with all
fields but i understand I should be setting up seperate
tables with relationships. One person could have many
areas of help, so I don't really want to have seperate
fields eg: area of help1, area of help2 etc.

Any guidance would be appreciated

 

[Duane Hookom]

Look here first http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reference Duane. Have tried to email for
the template "Church Members" but the email is
continually returned. Any suggestions?
And Thank you again for your contribution to us novices

 

[Duane Hookom]

I doubt they have tables set up that they will provide for you. You just
printout the structure, open your MDB, and create your tables to meet your
requirements.

 

[Jimmy]

Thanks again. The author of the site says he can provide
the actual data base on request. Have tried to follow
the structure but the realationships are not clear to me
EG: "PF"
Thanks again

 

[tina]

i assume you're looking at the model "created in the Design Modeling Tool".

PK = primary key field
FK = foreign key field. note that each foreign key field in a table is also
the name of a primary key field in another table.
PF = the field is a foreign key field, and is also part of a combination
primary key in the table. note that all the fields designated with yellow
letters on a brick-red background are primary key fields.

so, table Ministry_Staff has a combination primary key consisting of
ministry_id and staff_id (both of which are also foreign keys, from table
Ministries and table Staff, respectively).

table Member_Participation has a combination primary key consisting of three
fields: two foreign key fields, and one field that is "native" to that
table. table Staff_Skills has a two-field combination primary key consisting
of two foreign key fields.

all the other tables in the model have single-field primary keys. some of
the tables have foreign key fields, and some do not.

hth

 

[Duane Hookom]

Keep in mind this is only a suggestion. I add an autonumber pimary key to
every table I create and use this value my primary/foriegn key relationship.

 

[tina]

i'm with you on that, Duane! i use single-field primary keys in probably 98%
of my tables, and probably about 99% of those are Autonumber fields. look
out - we're probably going to hear from the "natural key" proponents. <g>

 

[Duane Hookom]

You keep an eye on the front door and I'll cover the back!

 

[Fred Boer]

Looks like youse guys are gonna be goin' to the mattresses...

Fredo

 

[Larry Daugherty]

Back in the heyday of Access 1.1 I ventured a helpful suggestion such
as Duane made except that my usage then and now is more like 99.999%
Autonumber PK.

The ensuing storm went on for over a week. The worshipers of the
Natural Key took it pretty hard. They were noisily unwilling to allow
anyone to escape their orthodox practices. Surrogate keys were an
evil creation and no one should be allowed to use them.

Wiser folk just quietly advised that each developer do what seem right
to them.

HTH

 

[Tom Lake]

Keep in mind this is only a suggestion. I add an autonumber pimary key to
every table I create and use this value my primary/foriegn key
relationship.

You add a WHAT?!? NO, NO! Say it ain't so! Actually, the only reason
I don't use them is that they're hard to initialize to a number other than
one and they have no relationship to any of our business practices. If your
business already assigns customer numbers to your customers, why fool around
with autonumbering? The next customer number can be generated automatically
without them.

Tom Lake

 

[Larry Daugherty]

Hi Tom,

If you want to generate a sequence for human readability then an
autonumber definitely is not the way to go. Autonumbers are strictly
for generating unique surrogate keys. You can't count on a gapless
sequence and in time you may get negative numbers, etc. If you need a
human readable sequence then you must generate it yourself. While MS
takes a different route and shows of their autonumber PKs as though
proud of them, I recommend that an autonumber never be seen by a user.
I never show them in my apps.

HTH