Please help me design my database

[Nelson]

Hi,

I'm trying to design a simple database in which I can keep track of the
amount of time my 5 technicians spend on various jobs.

At the start and end of each particular job (could be 5 minutes to
several hours), they punch a time clock. So, at the end of the
day/week/month I have a boat load of time cards with their hours for
each job, which I enter into an Excel spreadsheet. I'm pretty good
with Excel, but know that there must be a better way. For instance, my
spreadsheet takes forever to open and save because of its size.

I've been playing around with Access and have set up a rudimentary
database. It has 2 tables: It looks like this.

Table 1: "Techs"
Field 1: TechID (auto number primary key)
Field 2: TechName

Table 2: "Jobs"
Field 1: JobID (auto number primary key)
Field 2: Date
Field 3: TechID (linked to TechID field in "Techs" table
Field 4: JobNo (job number related to the particular task)
Field 5: TimeOff (time job ended)
Field 6: TimeOn (time job started)

So, it's pretty simple, but here's my problem. Each tech has lots of
entries for a particular date. And since I don't do data entry every
day, by the end of the week there's a decent amount of data to enter.
I'd like to not have to type the date for each record and I'd also not
have to type the TechName for each record.

In other words, I'd like a data entry form where I can set the Date and
TechName just once and only have to enter the JobNo, TimeOff and
TimeOn. Then, when I'm done with one tech, I can move on to the next
tech and still not have to change the date. Finally, when I'm done
with all of the entries for one day, I can move on to the next date.

Any suggestions on how I would set this up?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards,
Nelson

[Bob Quintal]

"Nelson" <hu**********@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:11**********************@v46g2000cwv.googlegr oups.com:

Hi,

I'm trying to design a simple database in which I can keep
track of the amount of time my 5 technicians spend on various
jobs.

At the start and end of each particular job (could be 5
minutes to several hours), they punch a time clock. So, at
the end of the day/week/month I have a boat load of time cards
with their hours for each job, which I enter into an Excel
spreadsheet. I'm pretty good with Excel, but know that there
must be a better way. For instance, my spreadsheet takes
forever to open and save because of its size.

I've been playing around with Access and have set up a
rudimentary database. It has 2 tables: It looks like this.

Table 1: "Techs"
Field 1: TechID (auto number primary key)
Field 2: TechName

Table 2: "Jobs"
Field 1: JobID (auto number primary key)
Field 2: Date
Field 3: TechID (linked to TechID field in "Techs" table
Field 4: JobNo (job number related to the particular task)
Field 5: TimeOff (time job ended)
Field 6: TimeOn (time job started)

So, it's pretty simple, but here's my problem. Each tech has
lots of entries for a particular date. And since I don't do
data entry every day, by the end of the week there's a decent
amount of data to enter. I'd like to not have to type the date
for each record and I'd also not have to type the TechName for
each record.

In other words, I'd like a data entry form where I can set the
Date and TechName just once and only have to enter the JobNo,
TimeOff and TimeOn. Then, when I'm done with one tech, I can
move on to the next tech and still not have to change the
date. Finally, when I'm done with all of the entries for one
day, I can move on to the next date.

Any suggestions on how I would set this up?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards,
Nelson

The controls for the fields on your form have a property called
..defaultvalue wrie a little bit of visual basic code in the
AfterUpdate of each control you want to carry forward,so for the
EmployeeID control

me.employeeID.defaultvalue = me.employeeID.value

This will hold the default value until you change it to another,
or until you close/reopen the form.

Now I'm going to suggest something else, instead of having the
employees punch an old-fashioned timeclock, wh not have a
computerised system where the employee steps up to a computer,
types in a job number and clicks either the start this job
button or finish this job button, dependent on which .event he's
doing. It will save hours of data entry.

--
Bob Quintal

PA is y I've altered my email address.