Still very lost...

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I am trying to produce a report of Customers to see on service calls. I
already have a simple form that the users can find customers by 1) Name, 2)
City, or 3) Sate. Using Option buttons and a combobox that displays only the
available items in each field. (The users are completely PC illiterate and I
need to keep things as simple as possible) If I can still use this form it
would be great but not essential. I want them to be able to select the
customers by any of these criteria, display the results in a tabular form
with fields from another tblTrips as follows:

Trip Description (in the form header)
Trip Date (in the form header)
Confirmed (CheckBox fields for each record found)
Notes (for each record found)

The user then just has to click on the customers for service and fill in any
notes for that customer (type of service required) then press the Print
Report button. The info gets saved in the tblTrips for future reference and a
report prints out for the Tech doing service. I've tried different approaches
but nothing works. This is way out of my level but, I'm sure with some
pointers and maybe examples I can figure it out. ANY help is, of course,
greatly appreciated.

Neill
 
Neill said:
Have I asked this question in the wrong group?
Click to expand...


No, not really.

I suspect that the reason you are not getting any replies is
that your question is too vague and lacking all kinds of
specific details. The way I read your question, it's kind
of like calling the doctor and saying: I don't feel good,
what pill should I take? These newsgroups are better
utilized for questions like: I have a 101 fever and upset
stomach, is it ok to take an aspirin along with the pills
you prescribed?
 
Thanks Marshall, that helps me a bit. I guess I'm being vague because I'm not
sure how to approach my problem. I have a query to get "ballpark" results
that I need for my report and I'm pretty sure that I can make the report that
I need once I have the "specific" results I need. I just don't know how to
take my "ballpark" results (i.e. Customers grouped by name, city, or state)
and present them in/on a Form that gives the user the ability to make
selections from that group to create the "specific" results for the Report.
My experience with Access has been sporadic and most of what I know has been
from examples like Northwind. I'm still lost as to how to even ask the right
question.

Thanks again for your comments. I'll keep trying.
 
Well, we're here to help, but we really need the important
details to be effective.

I suspect that your question might be trying to cover too
much scope. Try to break your problem down into smaller
pieces and work to get one piece operating before going on
to another piece. When you get stuck on a specific aspect,
then come on back with an explanation of what you've done
and what stumbling block you've run into.

You said earlier that the form is working correctly, so what
is the problem? Is it how to select one or more records on
the form so those records can be printed in a report? If
not, is it how to get the report to print the selected
records? Or what?
 
The form I use is what I call frmFind which gives the database
user the ability to find Customers based on either name, city,
or state. It has these 3 option buttons, an unbound comboBox that
displays the available choices depending on the option selected,
an OK button and a Cancel button. If they choose the City option,
the box displays only the cities available in tblCustomers on so
on. Code in the OnClick event for the OK button then opens the
frmCustomers with only the desired results.

This is where I am big-time-lost! How can I take the results from
my frmFind and open a "tabular" form with fields from another
table (tblTrips) to further select only the customers to visit,
which I could then use for my report? I'm not sure that this
is even the way to go with this but, I need to be able to define
a group of customers, which I can do, and then refine that group
to a smaller one, (which is where my problem begins) THEN print
the report and save the results in tblTrips for future reference.

I hope this is better!? I really appreciate any help you can give
me. Thank you!
 
I'm still confused. I think you said that the customers
form opens with the correctly filtered list of customers.
But then you say the problem is to open a form for trips.

I think what you may be looking for is to use a ListBox for
the customers, instead of a separate form. The reason I say
this is because it's easy to select items in a list box, but
a lot more complex to select items in a form (regardless of
how it's displayed). Place the list box on the find form
and make sure it has a Multi-Select capability. The list
box should include the customer table's primary key field,
even if you do not need to see it in the list (ColumnWidths
has a 0 for that field).

Once you get that working, post back with the list box name
and the important field names and we'll try to put together
a query to select the selected trips data.
--
Marsh
MVP [MS Access]


Neill Silva wrote
 
Marshall Barton said:
I'm still confused. I think you said that the customers
form opens with the correctly filtered list of customers.
But then you say the problem is to open a form for trips.
Click to expand...

Sorry! The frmCustomers is a form with multiple tabs with
all the information pertinent to each customer 1 record at a
time. Users of this database need to find groups of customers
for different reasons and the frmFind works well for the them
to do work on customer files 1 at a time. They can even print
reports based on these groups.

What I need to do now is generate a list of customers by
specific regions i.e. city, or state, and THEN filter that group by
selecting only certain ones with a check box and give a brief
reason for the visit by a Tech. or Rep. A technician may have to
see 5 of 50 customers in say, New York, NY. He wants a report
with the customers he has to see and remarks to tell him why
he has to go there.
I think what you may be looking for is to use a ListBox for
the customers, instead of a separate form. The reason I say
this is because it's easy to select items in a list box, but
a lot more complex to select items in a form (regardless of
how it's displayed). Place the list box on the find form
and make sure it has a Multi-Select capability. The list
box should include the customer table's primary key field,
even if you do not need to see it in the list (ColumnWidths
has a 0 for that field).
Click to expand...

I think a listBox would be difficult to use given the amount of
customers in all 50 states and some of our customers have
locations in more than 1 state.

The frmFind is based on the tblCustomers. Can I take the results
of my frmFind (or frmFind2) and open another form that has fields
from tblTrips and tblCustomers? That way all customers in 1 area
could be visible to the user and all the user would have to do is
click on the field "Confirmed" next to the customer to visit, type in
a reason for the visit, and print it.

Sorry for the confusion and for making this so difficult. I'm being
asked to make this a "simple, easy to use database" and I'm having
hard time explaining that, this is anything but simple.
Thanks for your continued help!
 
Responses inline below.
--
Marsh
MVP [MS Access]

Neill said:
Sorry! The frmCustomers is a form with multiple tabs with
all the information pertinent to each customer 1 record at a
time. Users of this database need to find groups of customers
for different reasons and the frmFind works well for the them
to do work on customer files 1 at a time. They can even print
reports based on these groups.
Click to expand...

Does this mean that the trips form is a subform on a tab
control in the customers form? If so, then you should use
the subform control's Link Master/Child properties to
display the trips for the current customer record.

What I need to do now is generate a list of customers by
specific regions i.e. city, or state, and THEN filter that group by
selecting only certain ones with a check box and give a brief
reason for the visit by a Tech. or Rep. A technician may have to
see 5 of 50 customers in say, New York, NY. He wants a report
with the customers he has to see and remarks to tell him why
he has to go there.
Click to expand...

Is that two questions? If so, go back and separate them so
we can address them one at a time.

If you are still trying to figure out how to select
customers, provide more details about the frmFind controls
that the user enters the criteria and how the check boxes
fit into the scenario.

I think a listBox would be difficult to use given the amount of
customers in all 50 states and some of our customers have
locations in more than 1 state.
Click to expand...

Ok, forget that idea.

The frmFind is based on the tblCustomers. Can I take the results
of my frmFind (or frmFind2) and open another form that has fields
from tblTrips and tblCustomers? That way all customers in 1 area
could be visible to the user and all the user would have to do is
click on the field "Confirmed" next to the customer to visit, type in
a reason for the visit, and print it.
Click to expand...

I think there may be two or three questions mixed in there.

What the heck is frmFind2?

What is this other form that has multiple tables???

This "Confirmed" field is a new concept. Is it the
checkbox(es?) you were talking about before? or a button on
the form??, or maybe it's a field in the trips table???
 
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