Display a series of records with mixed forms

Hi,

I've not done a lot of MS Access work and have been tasked with
creating a database to record and report on stages of complaints cases.

Each set of records for a case has a header, any number of complaint
follow-ups and any number of actions or outcomes against the case. Each
of these have different forms, with the case number being the
connecting key, and a date/time field.

Creating these individual records is not a problem. However, there is a
requirement to step through the entire case in chronological order both
for display and for reporting a full case history. This means using
mixed forms for the recordset. If there was only one form other than
the header I would use a subform but can't see how to mix them.

For my sins, I'm an ex Lotus Notes programmer and can picture how I
would do all this fairly easily. As I said, though, my Access is not at
that level as yet, but I'm sure there must be a simple method to do
something so logical.

Please could someone give me a pointer in the right direction?

Thanks,

Joan

re: Display a series of records with mixed forms

<joan.edington@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:1128442464.570554.271370@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I've not done a lot of MS Access work and have been tasked with
> creating a database to record and report on stages of complaints cases.
>
> Each set of records for a case has a header, any number of complaint
> follow-ups and any number of actions or outcomes against the case. Each
> of these have different forms, with the case number being the
> connecting key, and a date/time field.
>
> Creating these individual records is not a problem. However, there is a
> requirement to step through the entire case in chronological order both
> for display and for reporting a full case history. This means using
> mixed forms for the recordset. If there was only one form other than
> the header I would use a subform but can't see how to mix them.
>
> For my sins, I'm an ex Lotus Notes programmer and can picture how I
> would do all this fairly easily. As I said, though, my Access is not at
> that level as yet, but I'm sure there must be a simple method to do
> something so logical.
>
> Please could someone give me a pointer in the right direction?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joan[/color]


Although the design of the forms is important, it is normally table design
which is of primary importance and drives everything else. I'm not sure how
far you have got with this, but if we saw this then we might give a better
answer. Anyway, as a very general response, I could imagine a form with a
subform (or perhaps listbox or treeview) which would be a thin list down the
left showing the various items in chronological order. There would also be
a tabbed control with each tab having a subform for each particular thing
you are dealing with.
So highlighting itemX which is ThingType1 would show the make Tab1 visible
and all others invisible and would set the subform's recordsource to SELECT
* FROM tblType1Things WHERE CaseID=Me!CaseID.
Can you imagine this sort of thing?

re: Display a series of records with mixed forms

Brian,

Many thanks for that. When I first posted I hadn't got past the
pondering stage but I've got all the forms done now and your suggestion
virtually replicated what I'd have seen in Notes.

I did a similar generated list box for something totally different a
year or so ago in Access but it simply didn't click as being the way to
go for this.

I'm not finished yet but I'm quietly confident!

Thanks again.

Joan

Brian Wilson wrote:[color=blue]
> <joan.edington@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
> news:1128442464.570554.271370@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...[color=green]
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've not done a lot of MS Access work and have been tasked with
> > creating a database to record and report on stages of complaints cases.
> >
> > Each set of records for a case has a header, any number of complaint
> > follow-ups and any number of actions or outcomes against the case. Each
> > of these have different forms, with the case number being the
> > connecting key, and a date/time field.
> >
> > Creating these individual records is not a problem. However, there is a
> > requirement to step through the entire case in chronological order both
> > for display and for reporting a full case history. This means using
> > mixed forms for the recordset. If there was only one form other than
> > the header I would use a subform but can't see how to mix them.
> >
> > For my sins, I'm an ex Lotus Notes programmer and can picture how I
> > would do all this fairly easily. As I said, though, my Access is not at
> > that level as yet, but I'm sure there must be a simple method to do
> > something so logical.
> >
> > Please could someone give me a pointer in the right direction?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Joan[/color]
>
>
> Although the design of the forms is important, it is normally table design
> which is of primary importance and drives everything else. I'm not sure how
> far you have got with this, but if we saw this then we might give a better
> answer. Anyway, as a very general response, I could imagine a form with a
> subform (or perhaps listbox or treeview) which would be a thin list down the
> left showing the various items in chronological order. There would also be
> a tabbed control with each tab having a subform for each particular thing
> you are dealing with.
> So highlighting itemX which is ThingType1 would show the make Tab1 visible
> and all others invisible and would set the subform's recordsource to SELECT
> * FROM tblType1Things WHERE CaseID=Me!CaseID.
> Can you imagine this sort of thing?[/color]