I have a workbook that is used to record the results of post tensioned stressing (a concrete construction process). What I have works fine but I would like to be able to automatically fill out the "Stressing Record" sheet with data from "Tendon List" sheet. I have tried to adapt many similar methods but have not been able to make anything work as of yet. I would greatly appreciate any help I could get. Below is snippet of what I have and would like to do:
Tendon List
Stress Record
I would like to fill in Tendon Type as many times in as many rows as is specified in the Tendon List. I hope this makes sense.
Related
This feels like it should be a common requirement, but I'm not sure how best to implement the requirement.
I'm going to make up a really simple example. It's similar enough to what I actually need, without getting over-complicated.
Imagine we have a table called transport and it has the following columns:
type
model_name
size
number_of_wheels
fuel
maximum_passenger_count
We want to store all sorts of different types of transportation in this table, but not every type will have values in every column. Imagine the commonality is a lot higher, as this is a bit of fake example.
Here's a few examples of how this might work in practice:
type = cycle, we ban fuel, as it's not relevant for a cycle
type = bus, all columns are valid
type = sledge, we ban number_of_wheels, as sledges don't have wheels, we also ban fuel
type = car, all columns are valid
I want my UI to show a grid with a list of all the rows in the transport table. Users can edit the data directly in the grid and add new rows. When they add a new row, they're forced to pick the transport type in a dropdown before it appears in the grid. They then complete the details. All the values are optional, apart from the ones we explicitly don't want to record a value for, where we expect to not see anything at all.
I can see a number of ways to implement this, but none of them seems like a complete solution:
I could put this logic into the UI, enabling/ disabling grid cells based on type. But there's nothing to stop someone directly inserting data into the "wrong" columns in the backend of the database or via the API, which would then come through into the UI unless I added a rule to also mask out values in disabled cells. Making changes to which columns are restricted per transport type would be very difficult
I could put this logic into the API, raising an error if someone enters data into a cell that should be disallowed. This closes one gap for insertion to the database via the API, but SQL scripts would still allow entry into the "wrong" column. Also, the user experience would suck, as users would have to guess which columns to complete and which to leave blank. It would still be difficult to make changes to which columns are allowed/ restricted
I could add a trigger to the database, maybe to set the values to NULL if they shouldn't be allowed, but this seems clunky and users would not understand what was happening
I could add a generated column, but this doesn't help if I sometimes need to set a value and sometimes don't
I could just allow the unnecessary data to be stored in the database, then hide it by using a view to report it back. It doesn't seem great, as users would still see data disappearing from the UI with no explanation
I could add a second table, storing a matrix of which values are allowed and which are restricted by type. The API, UI and database could all implement this list using different mechanisms - this comes with the advantage of having a single place to make changes that will immediately be reflected across the entire system, but it's a lot of work and I have lots of these tables that work the same way
Beginner question. I would like to have a value list display only the records in a found set.
For example, in a law firm database that has two tables, Clients and Cases, I can easily create value list that displays all cases for clients.
But that is a lot of cases to pick from, and invites user mistakes. I would like the selection from the value list to be restricted to cases matched to a particular client.
I have tried this method https://support.claris.com/s/article/Creating-conditional-Value-Lists-1503692929150?language=en_US and it works up to a point, but it requires too much entry of data and too many tables.
It seem like there ought to be a simpler method using the find function. Any help or ideas greatly appreciated.
I have a large spreadsheet: 700+ rows, each having references to the previous row. I use reference functions: ROW(), COLUMN() and INDIRECT(), ADDRESS(). (Yes, I have considered fixing values every 50-100 rows to reduce calculation trail.)
Until recently I used OpenOffice.org and it worked fine. LibreOffice, however, when the file is opened, seems to give up after some rows and further calculations become Error 522. Sometimes a change makes it re-calculate it all and errors disappear and doesn't reappear when I undo the change. I have also found out about Ctrl-Shift-F9 (must be re-calculate), which also makes errors disappear.
Even though the file has been saved and re-saved by LibreOffice several times it still reports false Error 522 when I open the file, so it doesn't seem to be compatibility problem.
Is the problem that a very long branched out calculation trail makes the software think it will never get to the initial values and therefore it must be circular? (Which my idea of fixing values would solve.) Or could there be something else I may have missed?
UPDATE
I don't see how INDEX() would help. I want to refer to a cell immediately above or a cell from a row immediately above. Cell d46 could point to d45 or b45 or $a45, and that would work when copying a row, but not when inserting or deleting a row: If you insert a row just above, the references pointing 1 row above would start pointing 2 rows above, so each time I would have to edit the formulae. The row (each row) contains several references to the row just above, so I thought the easiest way would be INDIRECT(ADDRESS(ROW()-1,COLUMN())) for the same column or INDIRECT(ADDRESS(ROW()-1,1)) for column A... Any better solutions?
I do not know the specifics of the problem, but it sounds like it would help to simplify the formulas, as you suggested.
Another possibility is to write macros to handle some of the calculation work. Besides Basic, macros can be written in Java, which you seem to be familiar with. Macros can be called from a spreadsheet function, or called when the document is loaded.
It may also help to use a more powerful tool such as LibreOffice Base with MySQL. Often spreadsheets that need a lot of INDIRECT() and ADDRESS() are really using database-type logic.
I am working on Access 2007. I have a table with some fields in it. I had created a form from the table and one of the fields of the table is a concatenation of 2 fields from the same table.
There are 2 fields OppNo and Material in the table. I had created a form with these (and others in the table) fields. There is another field OppMat which is blank in the table. However, I had got the data into OppMat field populated as a concatenation of OppNo and Material fields in the form. I am now looking at having the table updated with the data of OppMat from the form to the same corresponding field in the table.
Kindly advise as how I could achieve this.
Thanks and regards,
This might be possible if these cases are met:
The field OppMat ALWAYS has the same structure and you can assure that it does.
Users will not be able or very unlikely to deviate from this structure.
Notably you should use something like Left(), Right(), Mid() and so on. Whatever works best for your structure. You can use the string modifiers: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789093.aspx
On the other hand I must admit that I am sceptical if your solutions is the best. Here are my reasons:
Users are unpredictable and will continously deviate from your intended way to use the application.
Using the string functions and fixating on one structure makes your code construction inflexible, hard to maintain if changes occur and prone to errors.
The alternatives seem to be better with little drawback.
My suggestions for alternatives:
Use one textbox for each field so that you have two textboxes. You can even position them that way that it almost looks like it is continous text. But not too much otherwise the user will beconfused.
You can add a label that shows your concatenated fields. But for input you use two different textboxes.
Cheers!
!!! UPDATED !!!
We have spreadsheets of complex product data coming in from multiple sources (internal, customers, vendors).
Since the authorship is so diverse, it's impractical to try governing formatting details such as column order and the number of header-rows.
These CSV spreadsheets will be uploaded to our DB via an existing form.
(My first Zend_Form ... I'm almost done with it)
The user needs to see a sample from a given spreadsheet so they can Map the columns and start-row.
To achieve that, I need to generate an html table of that dynamic content, and weave the form elements in and around the table data.
The user would select which values are to be found in each column, and identify the first row of data (after any header rows).
CLICK HERE to see an example.
(NOTE: Most of my work here is under an NDA, so contrived examples is the best we can get :)
In this example, I'd expect the output to be:
_POST('first_row'=>2, 'column0'=>'mi', 'column1'=>'lName', 'column2'=>'fName', 'column3'=>'gender')
With all those scpecifics mapped/defined, the uploaded spreadsheet can then be parsed and accurate data can be added to the product_history database.
Is ZF a good tool for this particular problem, or should I just write something from scratch?
How would you aproach this?
I am finally JUST BARELY starting to get this ZF stuff straight in my head, and this one has got me totally lost :)
Any and All advice appreciated.
~ Mo
I think in your case, using Zend_Form would be helpful for this situation.
The tricky part to it is of course that your forms are going to be largely dynamically generated on-the-fly based on the header and first row content of the CSV file.
Whether you used Zend_Form, or pure PHP, or some other solution, a lot of what you will be doing is the same (analyzing the CSV, providing dynamic inputs based on the CSV, and then error checking the selections). I think using Zend_Form has the advantage of making something like this very cleanly.
Given Zend_Form's nature, e.g. how it validates existing forms based on the elements added to the Zend_Form itself, you need to take a special approach with the form. Basically, after the user uploads the CSV once, you will create a Zend_Form object based on the number of columns, their positions in the CSV, and the name of the column.
Since you don't want to bother the user to upload the CSV multiple times if they make incorrect selections, I would parse the CSV into some sort of structure, maybe a simple object or array, and then build your Zend_Form based on that data. This way, you can save that structure to the session, so you can continue to regenerate the form based on the parsed data without having to read the file each time. This is because the main challenge with Zend_Form and dynamic forms, is that not only does the form need all of the elements and their properties when you want to display the form, but they are also required in order to validate the form and re-display the validated form.
I remember seeing this functionality many years ago in a PHP script, which I found is still available. Perhaps you could look at it for ideas. I won't post the link here since the screenshots and script are mostly adult website related and the site is NSFW for the most part, but it is called TGPX by JMBSoft. The 7th of the 8th screenshot on the main product page shows the import process where it lets the user map fields to data, exactly what you are doing.
Hope my advice is helpful, feel free to comment with any questions.