Cost Center Time Reporting Application

[Steve Miller]

hello...

i am a 'user' of access, meaning, i import excel files, join, and
merge....that's about the extent of my expertise with ms-access. my
boss wants me to create an access application that will replace our
'excel' version of time reporting. we use ms-access 2000. i have a
huge book (mastering access 2000) though the cd is missing. i looked
at using the wizard for time reporting, but is was designed for
external clients, and the input interface was not what our users are
looking for. aarguh. where to begin.

first question. do i need a table for each individual day, or can i
lump all the days in one month in one table?

second question. i'm having trouble creating an input form for the
user...but assuming i create something that works, will it generate a
new table with the data in it? i need something to report on...so,
where will the data end up?

third question...(maybe this should go first) - are there sample
applications i can try before i buy? or some that i can try, buy and
modify slightly? this may be a better alternative than creating
something from scratch...?

thanks,

steve miller
glenview, illinois

[Steve Miller]

Thanks Salad...you have solid mentoring skills, indeed. I have some
additional questions, etc -- if you have time...but please know...your
comments are so appreciated. Thank you soooo much.

Salad <oi*@vinegar.com> wrote in message news:<Te*****************@newsread2.news.pas.earth link.net>...

Steve Miller wrote:

hello...

i am a 'user' of access, meaning, i import excel files, join, and
merge....that's about the extent of my expertise with ms-access. my
boss wants me to create an access application that will replace our
'excel' version of time reporting.
A good boss. Has confidence in you. Now...if you have confidence in
yourself....

we use ms-access 2000. i have a

huge book (mastering access 2000) though the cd is missing. i looked
at using the wizard for time reporting, but is was designed for
external clients, and the input interface was not what our users are
looking for. aarguh. where to begin.

first question. do i need a table for each individual day, or can i
lump all the days in one month in one table?

No. Why would you want a table for each day. You'd never get a day
off. Hey Steve, need you to create a table for tomorrow! Do you
currently create a new Excel sheet for each day?

Look at the Excel sheet. It is comprised of rows and columns. That is
what a database table is. A row is a record. The columns are the
fields. You can have 100 of thousands of rows as long as you don't
exceed the database specifications (see specifications in help)

You need to think your tables and structure out. First thing, you want
to create an employee table. I suggest a table with an autonumber (call
it EmpID) or if you have an internal employee id use that and make it
the primary key. Some other fields are first name, last name, and SSN
and whatever other info you track on the emp that is relevent to this table.

ok, i did this...the table has two columns. Employee Name, Employee
Number. This is only for our division, so about 18 employees.

Next, you need a table to hold the time info. You need to figure out
what information you want to hold in it. Create an autonumber field
called EmpHoursID...or whatever and make it the primary key.
ok, this is where i get confused. my excel spreadsheet is arranged
like this (colums across)(each employee fills out a sheet, so the
employee name is found in the file name, ie: steve-june2004.xls)

project name, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...,Total,Expense

so, what will the EmpHoursID do? will it collect the time for each
day, or only for a specific project over a number of days? I'm
looking for # of hours per project, per day, per employee.
Then you
need to add the additional fields. You will need the employee id field
to link to the Employee table.
did this...and when i created the form, a drop down list appears for
each employee name (cool!)
If you made EmpID an autonumber in the
Employee table , make this EmpID a number type long. Otherwise, it
should exactly match the size/type of the employee id in the table
Employee. Next, create 4 date/time fields. The first 2 are start
date/end date. The second 2 are start/end time. The reason for this is
that you might have shifts that may span 2 days.
I didn't do this because time start/end isn't necessary...just the
number of hours worked per day on the the project.

second question. i'm having trouble creating an input form for the
user...but assuming i create something that works, will it generate a
new table with the data in it? i need something to report on...so,
where will the data end up?
Once you have your tables created, you create the forms. You should
provide us with info on how you want the employee to sign in/out or how
the data is to be be entered. Or are the times entered by someone
else...iow the employees tell you their hours.

This is simply a user interface issue. You really need to put some
thought into this as to what data you need to collect

ok, i created the form...it looks very similar to the excel
spreadsheet, so the users will be comfortable entering the data.

my difficulties are as follows:

when the employee selects the month, i'd like the days the show across
identify when the weekends are, and populate the day name across the
numbers automatically...example:

the form looks like this:

empname, proj, month, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...

so, empname is dropdown, proj is dropdown, month is dropdown. how can
i get the Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday....to correspond with the 1,2,3,4
based on the month and year?

also...i have one form. if i allow all employees to use this one
form, everyone will see what everyone else was working on. isn't
there a way that each user can have his/her own form? will it still
send all of the information back to the same table?

third question...(maybe this should go first) - are there sample
applications i can try before i buy? or some that i can try, buy and
modify slightly? this may be a better alternative than creating
something from scratch...?
Unknown. But it might be the best if you are not a developer. I went
to http://www.tucows.com/ and entered a search on Timeclocks. Do some
searching there. Try the words Time, Time sheet, time clock.

ok, i downloaded a couple of applications...not sure if they are
ms-access based or not. our computer guys (IS department) have this
machine locked down preventing any installations. so, i guess this is
another issue all together.

I would recommend if you go with a software method, make sure it has
import and export capabilities. IOW, if you have an employee list
already, you don't want to reenter it. You want to suck the data up
from your current employee list into the new app.
BTW. here is something for you to try out if you are familiar with
Excel. Get to the database window, click on the tables tab, and from
the menu select File/GetExternalData/Link. Select FileType Excel. Now
find a simple Excel table for testing....columns on top with rows. Hit
OK to link.

ok..I did this too. it looked ok, but not useful, since the first
three rows identified the data below, instead of only the first row as
a header. for example, like i mentioned above, it looked like this:

row 1: emp name, blank, mo,tu,wd,th,fr,sa,su,mo,tu,wd,th,fr,sa...etc
row 2: blank,projectnm, 01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13...etc

that way the employee knows which DAY corresponds to which date.

Now press OPEN for the Excel file.

thanks,

steve miller
glenview, illinois

[Salad]

Steve Miller wrote:

Thanks Salad...you have solid mentoring skills, indeed. I have some
additional questions, etc -- if you have time...but please know...your
comments are so appreciated. Thank you soooo much.

I'll take this off line. Is that your real e-mail addy?