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Question(s) about tables and primary key

spk spk is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 6
#1: Jul 17 '07
So I am beginning to create a DB for my wife's work, a small machine shop.
She has provided some excel files to start with that include:

PO number
Part number
$ per part
Date of Manufacture
Customer Name
and Notes

She wants to be able to search by part number or po number and pull up all the other information. I took a class in Access and I understand that I need to create a query to do this but I don't know if each of these classifications should be in separate tables or all in one, because my bigger problem is identifying which of these is the primary key. None of these fields are unique. The PO number is reused for future orders, and the part number can be reordered.

Can anyone help me with this?
Much thanks in advance.......

Rabbit's Avatar
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: California
Posts: 3,835
#2: Jul 17 '07

re: Question(s) about tables and primary key


In cases like these, just use an autonumber.
spk spk is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 6
#3: Jul 17 '07

re: Question(s) about tables and primary key


Oh, really? And would you recommend leaving all the information within one table? I can't see any reason not to, apart from the primary key thing.
Rabbit's Avatar
Expert
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: California
Posts: 3,835
#4: Jul 17 '07

re: Question(s) about tables and primary key


There's no reason to seperate into multiple tables unless you find that you're repeating a lot of information.

This tutorial will let you know if you need to seperate your data tables.
spk spk is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 6
#5: Jul 17 '07

re: Question(s) about tables and primary key


Thanks so much for the help!!!

I'm going to check out the tutorial now.
Thanks again!
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