Using subform to display a history of previous memo boxes?

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Guest

I have a form for entering updates/follow-up on workplace accidents. Reports
must be submitted at various intervals--30 day, 3 months, 5 months, 7 months,
9 months, & Other Interval. I have set the form up so that at the beginning
of the report there is a check box next each of these intervals. Further down
the form there is a memo box called mmoNewInformation for New Info, however
before that there is a memo box called mmoSummaryInfo asking for a short
summary of all previous follow-ups.

What I wish to do is somehow display a listing (a subform?) of all previous
mmoNewInformation entries along with both the interval checkbox that was used
at the time the form was filled out and the date of that mmoNewInformation
was written (dtNewInfo is already a field in the underlying table).

I want to do this so the person filling out the current follow-up report can
view the entire history of mmoNewInformation's in order to do a current
summary. Also I'd like the listing of the mmoNewInformation's to be in
chronological order so who ever is writing the most current summary will be
able to read the events as they unfold.

Although I consider myself an intermediate user I don't have much experience
with subforms. Is that what we would use here?

Thanks for your help.
David
 
I have a form for entering updates/follow-up on workplace accidents. Reports
must be submitted at various intervals--30 day, 3 months, 5 months, 7 months,
9 months, & Other Interval. I have set the form up so that at the beginning
of the report there is a check box next each of these intervals. Further down
the form there is a memo box called mmoNewInformation for New Info, however
before that there is a memo box called mmoSummaryInfo asking for a short
summary of all previous follow-ups.

What I wish to do is somehow display a listing (a subform?) of all previous
mmoNewInformation entries along with both the interval checkbox that was used
at the time the form was filled out and the date of that mmoNewInformation
was written (dtNewInfo is already a field in the underlying table).

I want to do this so the person filling out the current follow-up report can
view the entire history of mmoNewInformation's in order to do a current
summary. Also I'd like the listing of the mmoNewInformation's to be in
chronological order so who ever is writing the most current summary will be
able to read the events as they unfold.
Click to expand...

If you're storing multiple notes in each memo field... you may want to
revise your table structure. YOu should instead consider having TWO
tables in a one to many relationship; rather than putting multiple
"chunks" of information in your memo field, you would add a new record
for each chunk of new information. The table would also have a
date/time field indicating when the comment was added, and a foreign
key field linking it to the main table's ID.

Base a Subform on a Query on this table, sorted by the datefield and
using this ID field as the master/child link field, and you should see
what you want. Migrating the data from your current non-atomic
composite memo field to this new structure may be a bit of a challenge
but should be possible.

If the users have been overwriting the previous contents of
mmoNewInformation each time, then the previous entries are lost
forever. Access assumes that if you're overwriting a field, that you
want the old information discarded - and it does so, with no retrieval
possible.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
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