Table Questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
  • Start date Start date
S

Steve

I have a people table related to a application table. The person table is
also related to a lease table. I need to keep track of peoples addresses
when they submit an application, have a lease with me, or move on to other
addresses. Should I have a separate address table? I have the same
situation with phone numbers. Someone turns in an application and has a
phone number. Then when they move in or out they may have different phone
numbers. I'd like to keep track of all of them. If I had several addresses
for a person in the people table how would I know if one was for an
application or for after they moved out of our unit? Any suggestions. I'm
just begining. TIA
Steve
 
If a person can have multiple addresses (even over time), and you want to
keep track of them, then yes, you need another table. The same is true for
phone number, although some people will advocate having a general "Numbers"
table in which you store phone, alternate phone, cell, email, fax, etc. You
have one field for the foreign key (of course), a field for the type of
number (phone, email, etc) and then a field to store the actual number.
 
Steve

One approach to solving a "many people, many address" situation is to use
three tables. One table for persons, one table for addresses, and one table
for valid combination(s) of person/address. In that third table, I note
FromWhen, and ToWhen, to show the time frame during which a person was using
an address. I leave the ToWhen empty if the person is still there.

Good luck!

Jeff Boyce
<Access MVP>
 
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