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Help please! New user to Access

I recently started working in a real estate company and I am having
serious problems on organizing their database, mostly because I had
never "put my hands" on Ms. Access. My problem is the following:

We have lots of addresses of companys and each area of activity is a
database.
Want I want to do is to gather all the databases in just one called
"Clients", which I did by importing all the tables into a single
database. But then I want to be able to search for a specific company
by filling certain fields. The fields that I have in the tables are :
company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes.

Please help me!
Thank you in advance,

C. Caires
Nov 13 '05 #1
4 1138
"C. Caires" <cc*****@cosmopolita.pt> wrote in message
news:a8**************************@posting.google.c om...
I recently started working in a real estate company and I am having
serious problems on organizing their database, mostly because I had
never "put my hands" on Ms. Access. My problem is the following:

We have lots of addresses of companys and each area of activity is a
database.
Want I want to do is to gather all the databases in just one called
"Clients", which I did by importing all the tables into a single
database. But then I want to be able to search for a specific company
by filling certain fields. The fields that I have in the tables are :
company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes.

Please help me!
Thank you in advance,

C. Caires


I gather from your post that the same fields are in every table?
IF this is so, it would be better to put all the data into ONE table and add
one additional field that specifies what list that data came from.
Something like:
SOURCE, company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes
With all the records of *similar* type data in one table, searching for a
specific company among them all becomes a simple task.

Welcome to normalizing.

HTH.
~ Duane Phillips.

Nov 13 '05 #2
C. Caires wrote:
I recently started working in a real estate company and I am having
serious problems on organizing their database, mostly because I had
never "put my hands" on Ms. Access. My problem is the following:

We have lots of addresses of companys and each area of activity is a
database.
Want I want to do is to gather all the databases in just one called
"Clients", which I did by importing all the tables into a single
database. But then I want to be able to search for a specific company
by filling certain fields. The fields that I have in the tables are :
company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes.


Please make sure that when you say 'database', you mean the whole of all
tables and other objects. When you say 'table' you mean a set of
records, all having the same set of fields. (referred to as rows with
columns, too)

Usually I have a table for contacts, and a related (sub)table for all
addresses. For reference (or more specialized actions like datatype or
default values) I maintain an address type table as well.

My idea is to store all addresses (be they mail, phone, fax, but account
numbers as well) "on the same level" which makes searching easy.

If you wish to learn more about my setup, I will write an article for my
site. I believe that is easiest.

--
Bas Cost Budde, Holland
http://www.heuveltop.nl/BasCB/msac_index.html
I prefer human mail above automated so in my address
replace the queue with a tea
Nov 13 '05 #3
In message <a8**************************@posting.google.com >, C. Caires
<cc*****@cosmopolita.pt> writes
I recently started working in a real estate company and I am having
serious problems on organizing their database, mostly because I had
never "put my hands" on Ms. Access. My problem is the following:

We have lots of addresses of companys and each area of activity is a
database.
Want I want to do is to gather all the databases in just one called
"Clients", which I did by importing all the tables into a single
database. But then I want to be able to search for a specific company
by filling certain fields. The fields that I have in the tables are :
company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes.


If I understand your situation correctly, you are trying to consolidate
a number of database that have been designed for different jobs. What
you want to do first is to move all of the client contact data into one
table.

I can come up with some suggestions for things you could do, but only
you know what the real requirements are, so you need to decide for
yourself what will work in your organisation.

You could hire someone to build a new system, and at the same time teach
you more about Access. In general I think that you will learn more about
Access by trying to build the system yourself, and by making mistakes.
You can ask questions in the newsgroup here, and all of the other people
reading the newsgroup will learn from them. I will make suggestions and
if others disagree they will make their own suggestions, and I can learn
from them.

One problem that you will need to face is that you need to continue
running the business while the new database is built. That means that
client contact details in the other databases will be changed while you
work. You need to work around this problem.

You could build a new database structure then at some time in the future
copy all of the data across and then use the new database, abandoning
the old database. Or you could build a new database and attach the data
tables from the old ones. If you do that your new database will have
current data, and your users can continue working with their old
systems. This is what I would try to do, but it may involve some complex
coding.


--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.

Nov 13 '05 #4
C. Caires,
You already have some good advice in the other posts. The thing I want to
add is take the time to plan this on paper before you start building
anything. Then take your plan and explain it to someone that will use the
information which will have a new home in your database. One idea to
consider is to leave the existing databases in place since they are what
people are used to using. Then build your database so it can examine the
existing databases and find any changes or new data and add those to yours.
Then once your users have gained confidence in your database as a more
reliable source of information then you can think about archiving the old
databases to a CD and making them unavailable.
Which reminds me. Before you do anything you might regret later make sure
you have a fresh backup of all the databases in the project. Burn them to
one or more CD's. That way if something screws up you can restore to the
last backup and recover any changes since.
As for design ideas, it sounds like you have people, companies, addresses
and activities. I'd probably build additional entities (tables) to connect
people to companies, people to addresses, companies to addresses, people to
activities. Companies to activities can be inferred from the person
affiliated to a company that is associated with an activity.
Start by using a pencil & paper to chart the entities (tables) and their
attributes (fields). Then figure out how the business uses the information
in your entities so you can work out your relationships & so on. Only once
someone that will use the data can understand your charts and is comfortable
with how they will support the information flow should you start building
your database.

"C. Caires" <cc*****@cosmopolita.pt> wrote in message
news:a8**************************@posting.google.c om...
Want I want to do is to gather all the databases in just one called
"Clients", which I did by importing all the tables into a single
database. But then I want to be able to search for a specific company
by filling certain fields. The fields that I have in the tables are :
company name, business, address, fax nr, e-mail, phone nr. and notes.

Nov 13 '05 #5

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