TblEmployees has Fname, Lname and EmployeeName fields. EmployeeName should be Fname + Lname (i.e. John Doe). I want to enter Fname and Lname in a form FrmEmployeeData, and update TblEmployees with Fname, Lname and EmployeeName.
If FrmEmployeeData has as Data Source TblEmployees, how do I get the concatenated [Fname]&" "&[Lname] into the EmployeeName field of the table?
I also tried changing the DataSource of FrmEmployeeData to a query QryConcatenateFname&Lname where EmployeeName:[Fname]&" "&[Lname]. This gave the correct "John Doe" in the query result but I could not get it to update the TblEmployees.
What am I doing wrong? Thx.
It looks like you are learning access as this question is really too simple for stack overflow. Instead consult an Access book at your library or start finding Youtube vidoes and tutorials on the internet. Having said that here is a start:
Access gives you the ability to add a calculated field to a table in the design tab by treating it as a DataType. You can also add lookups and some data validation. Never do any of that!! Use forms to enter and search the data, and use reports to print the data.
A simple yet quite incomplete explanation is that as your database expands into multiple related tables you will find that entering the data directly into the tables is error prone for the database designer yet alone the clients. Because any observation will be distributed across multiple tables it becomes easier and easier to forget one or make a mistake as you add more and more tables.
Access is designed for quickly making simple forms for the tables in your database. If your relationships are already entered using the Relationships tool Access even generates starter forms that handle 1 to many relationships. Just click on a table and under home then forms group on the ribbon choose either form or form wizard and start playing with your new forms properties:
if you don't see the properties (hit f4 in most cases). Seriously every control has properties you can play with. In particular look at the control sources and for the form itself (hit the top left corner to select the form) check out the default view property.
I happened to include EmployeeName as a string in tblEmployees but there was no need other than having access put the EmployeeName textbox on the form. I would have to go back and delete EmployeeName from the table which is about the same effort as adding the textbox to the form myself. Below I show how to set the control source for EmployeeName to the usual FullName calculation
=[Fname] & " " & [Lname]
Access forms by default have both data entry and search capabilities. Play with the record selector highlighted at the bottom of the beautified form below. You can edit any record you see and the changes will appear in the table. If you go past the last record you can add a new record.
I have two tables in one MySQLI database. One is called 'actions' and one is called 'links'. But recently I have noticed that many links which I have transfered from my old system don't have any actions attached to it, and I want to count how many they are. So I want to count the amount of links whose id hasn't any entries in the actions table. How can I formulate the statement. There is one id in the links table and one link_id in the actions table.
You are looking for a outer join. without a lot of details, it would look something like:
SELECT * FROM links
LEFT JOIN actions on links.field = actions.field
WHERE actions.ID is NULL;
This will give you all the links records that don't have a corresponding record in actions.
I'm writing a budget database, and while planning out the tables went fine, forms are proving to be trickier.
I have a 'transactions' table, and two queries based off it. The tables and column names are below
'people_to_reimburse' : payee_name, total
'unwritten_checks' : payee_name, amount, description, date_incurred
I'd like to make a form where you can go through the people to reimburse, and there's a subform showing which checks are theirs. Obviously, the payee_name would be the field to link on.
However, in Access's Form Wizard, when I select these two tables, I get an error of:
You have chosen fields from record sources which the wizard can't connect. You may have chosen fields from a table and from a query based on that table.
How would I set up a form like this, if it's possible? If not, why can't I?
I'm new to Filemaker and need some advice on auto-populating tables.
Part 1:
I have TableA which includes many records with client information. I want a separate TableB which is identical to TableA except that it is "de-identified"; that is, it does not contain two of the fields, first name and last name.
I would like the two tables to interact such that if I add a new record to TableA, that same record (sans first and last name) appear automatically in TableB.
Part 2:
In addition to the above functionality, I would also like said functionality to be dependent on a specific field type from TableA. For example, I enter a new record, which has a "status" field set to "active," into tableA. I then want that record to be auto-popualted into TableB; however, if I add another record with a "status" of "inactive," I want that that record auto-populated into a TableC but not into TableB.
FileMaker can perform this with script triggers so long as every layout where TableA will be edited has a layout script trigger of OnRecordCommit connected to it. When the record is committed (which can happen in a number of ways), the attached script will run, which you can use to create the appropriate record in the appropriate table.
The script could create the record in a number of ways. If the primary keys for both records are the same, you could use lookups. You could export the record in TableA and then import it into the correct table. You could pass the field information as a parameter to the script. The best choice really depends on your needs.
Having said that, I would question the wisdom of this approach. It brings up a few questions that would seem to complicate matters. For example, what happens when the status changes? When a record in TableA is deleted? When fields in TableA are modified? Each of these contingencies (and others) will require thought and more complicated scripts.
So I would ask what problem you're really trying to solve. My best guess is that you are trying to keep the name information private from certain users. User accounts and privileges with dedicated layouts for each privilege can solve this without the need for duplicate tables. FileMaker privilege sets can be quite granular.
For example, you can specify that users with PrivilegeA can create records and view names, but PrivilegeB users can only view records if the status is "active" and the name fields are not available to them, while PrivilegeC users can view records if the status is "inactive" and the name fields are also not available to them.
I would definitely use filters and permissions on the "status field" to achieve this and not two mirroring tables. Unless the inactive information is drastically different, you would be complicated your solution and creating more possible pitfalls.
I have created an adaptation of the 'Goods' database that includes a quote feature. The user selects the customer (customer table), Product (product table), qty, discount ect.
The chosen entities then get saved to the quotes table and there is a 'print' function on form.
Whilst the information can be saved and the quote prints via a quote report, I'm having major difficulty in finding a way to add multiple products to a single quote.
The main objective is to be able to select various products and add their total price (product after addition of qty, discount) to a SUB TOTAL
Quote total is therefore the formula Tax+Shipping+SubTotal
any takers? :)
Hi guys,
Thanks for the response I really appreciate it. As for tax and shipping, they are just added in the form and are not pushed from anywhere else in the database. Its simply a type in form and display on report sort of thing. As you said in the answer, HansUp, the salesperson will compute it seperately and just input it.
As for tax, products will be shiped globally so the tax/vat shall be computed seperately also.
Also, each table DOES have its own unique ID.
More to the point of having QuoteProducts. I can't seem to get my head around it! Are you saying that whatever products are chosen in QuoteProducts will create a QuoteProd_ID and then that ID's total price will therefore be added to the Quote?
I tried making a subform before but through the 'multiple records' form but obviously every selection made its own ID. Is there any way you could elaborate on the Quote products part and how it allows multiple records to store to one ID? Without understanding it i'm pretty much useless.
In addition, how the multiple records are then added up to make the subtotal also baffles me. Is that done in the Quote form?
Edit 2
HALLELUJAH.
It works! I created a sum in a textbox on the footer of the subform and then pushed that into subtotal :)
I do have one slight issue:
I made a lookup&relationship for the ListPrice. I don't think its the correct way to do it as it comes up with the price of every light (i.e 10 products priced £10, £10 shows up ten times in dropdown).
Can you guys help?
List Price Problem
here's what i've tried:
1) Create >Client>Query Design
2) Show Products, QuoteDetails. For some reason, it automtically comes up with ListPrice, ProductID (as it should) and Product Name linked to ID in Products
3) Delete links with ListPrice and ProductName.
4) Show all in quoteDetails (*)
5) Create Multiple Items form
Doesnt work! What am I doing wrong?
I'm extremely grateful for both your help. If I can do anything, just shout.
Ryan
In addition to HansUp's stellar answer, you might be interested in DatabaseAnswers.org. They have a number of data models for free that might provide additional insight to your situation and possibly serve as inspiration for future projects you may encounter.
Edit 1
Forget about the form and report for a moment - they are important but not as important as the data and how you store the data.
In your current design, you have a quotes table presumably with an autonumber key field. For the purposes of this answer, this field is named Quote_ID.
The quotes table, as HansUp suggested, should store information such as the Customer_ID, Employee_ID, OrderDate and perhaps even a reference to a BillingAddress and ShippingAddress.
The quotes table SHOULD NOT store anything about the products that the customer has ordered as part of this quote.
Instead, this information should be stored in a table called QuoteProducts or QuoteDetails.
It's structure would look something like the following:
QuoteDetails_ID --> Primary Key of the table (autonumber field)
Quote_ID --> Foreign key back to the Quotes table
Product_ID --> Foreign key back to Products table
Quantity
UnitPrice
You may also want to consider a field for tax and a separate field for shipping per line item on the quote. You will inevitably run into situations where certain items are taxable in some locations and not others, etc.
This design allows a particular quote to have any number of products assigned to the quote.
Returning to your form \ reports, you would need to change your existing forms and reports to accomodate this new table design. Typically one would use a main form for the quote itself, and then a subform for the quote details (item, price, quantity, etc).
To get the quote total, you would sum the items in QUoteDetails for a particular Quote_ID.
You may also want to check out the Northwind sample database from Microsoft. From what I recall Northwind had a sample Orders system that might help make these ideas more concrete for you by seeing a working example.
For the first 3 tables mentioned in your comment, each should have a primary key: Customers, customer_id; products, product_id; and employees, employee_id.
The quotes table will have its own primary key, quote_id, and will store customer_id and employee_id as foreign keys. (I'm assuming you want employee_id to record which customer representative/salesperson created the quote.) You may also decide to include additional attributes for each quote; date and time quote prepared, for example.
The products offered for quotes will be stored in a junction table, QuoteProducts. It will have foreign keys for quote_id and product_id, with one row for each product offered in the quote. This is also where you can store the attributes quantity and discount. An additional field, unit_price, can allow you to store the product price which was effective at the time the quote was prepared ... which would be useful in case product prices change over time. I don't know whether tax should be included in this table (see below).
I also don't know how to address shipping. If all the products associated with a quote are intended to be delivered in one shipment, shipping cost could be an attribute of the quotes table. I don't know how you intend to derive that value. Seems like it might be determined by shipping method, distance, and weight. If you have the salesperson compute that value separately, and then input the value, consider how to handle the case where the product selection changes after the shipping fee has been entered.
That design is somewhat simplistic, but might be sufficient for the situation you described. However, it could get more complex. For example, if you decide to maintain a history of product price changes, you would be better off to build in provisions for that now. Also, I have no idea how tax applies in your situation --- whether it's a single rate applied to all products, varies by customer location, varies by type of customer, and/or varies by product. Your business rules for taxes will need to be accommodated in the schema design.
However, if that design works for you (test it by entering dummy data into the tables without using a form), you could create a form based on quotes with a subform based on QuoteProducts. With quote_id as the link master/child property, the subform will allow you to view all products associated with the main form's current quote_id. You can use the subform to add, remove, and/or edit products associated with that quote.
Not much I can say about the report. There is a lot of uncertainty in the preceding description. However, if your data base design allows you to build a workable form/subform, it should also support a query which gathers the same data. Use that query as the record source for the report. And use the report's sorting and grouping features to create the quote grand total.
Edit: With the main form/ subform approach, each new row in the subform should "inherit" the quote_id value of the current record in the main form. You ensure that happens by setting the link master/child properties to quote_id. Crystal Long explains that in more detail in chapter 5 of Access Basics by Crystal: PDF file. Scroll down to the heading Creating a Main Form and Subform on page 24.
Edit2: Your strategy may include storing Products.ListPrice in QuoteDetails.ListPrice. That would be useful to record the current ListPrice offered for a quote. If so, you can fetch ListPrice from Products and store it in QuoteDetails when you select the ProductID for a row in the subform. You can do that with VBA code in the after update event of the control which is bound to the ProductID field. So if that control is a combo box named cboProductID and the subform control bound to the QuoteDetails ListPrice field is a text box named txtListPrice, use code like this for cboProductID after update:
Me.txtListPrice = DLookup("ListPrice", "Products", "ProductID = " _
& Me.cboProductID)
That suggestion assumes the Products and QuoteDetails tables both include a ProductID field and its data type is numeric. And cboProductID has ProductID as its bound field and uses a query as its RowSource similar to this:
SELECT ProductID, ProductName
FROM Products
ORDER BY ProductName;