We are a floor covering business that regularly checks out and of course back
in our floor covering samples. At the time we check them out, we get name,
address, phone #'s, CC#, sample name and so on. We have no way currently set
up to do this in a PC format, just hand written. We need help to be able to
track them in and out better so we can generate a report or something that
tells us what has not been turned back in but also what is the most popular
checked-out items.

Any on have any suggestions?

do you work in Renton, WA?




On May 21, 2:55 pm, RichN <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> We are a floor covering business that regularly checks out and of course back
> in our floor covering samples. At the time we check them out, we get name,
> address, phone #'s, CC#, sample name and so on. We have no way currently set
> up to do this in a PC format, just hand written. We need help to be able to
> track them in and out better so we can generate a report or something that
> tells us what has not been turned back in but also what is the most popular
> checked-out items.
>
> Any on have any suggestions?

"Susie DBA [MSFT]" <s u s i ed b a @hotmail.com> wrote:

>do you work in Renton, WA?



Note that this person is really A a r o n K e m p f and that he is not an employee
of Microsoft.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

No Leavenworth, WA. Why?

"Tony Toews [MVP]" wrote:

> "Susie DBA [MSFT]" <s u s i ed b a @hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >do you work in Renton, WA?
>
>
>
> Note that this person is really A a r o n K e m p f and that he is not an employee
> of Microsoft.
>
> Tony
> --
> Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
> Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
> read the entire thread of messages.
> Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
> http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
> Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
>

On Mon, 21 May 2007 14:55:00 -0700, RichN <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>We are a floor covering business that regularly checks out and of course back
>in our floor covering samples. At the time we check them out, we get name,
>address, phone #'s, CC#, sample name and so on. We have no way currently set
>up to do this in a PC format, just hand written. We need help to be able to
>track them in and out better so we can generate a report or something that
>tells us what has not been turned back in but also what is the most popular
>checked-out items.

That's pretty straightforward in Access. You might want to do a quick Google
search for "Access Library" - there are a number of good lending-library
sample databases out there; you would only need to change their Books table to
a Samples table with appropriate changes to fields.

If you want to build it from scratch post back, it's a good learning example!

John W. Vinson [MVP]

I did some work -- building a point of sale system-- for a floor
covering place in redmond



On May 21, 1:55 pm, RichN <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> We are a floor covering business that regularly checks out and of course back
> in our floor covering samples. At the time we check them out, we get name,
> address, phone #'s, CC#, sample name and so on. We have no way currently set
> up to do this in a PC format, just hand written. We need help to be able to
> track them in and out better so we can generate a report or something that
> tells us what has not been turned back in but also what is the most popular
> checked-out items.
>
> Any on have any suggestions?

Would love to learn to do it from scratch, just have not used Access before.
Can you help?

"John W. Vinson" wrote:

> On Mon, 21 May 2007 14:55:00 -0700, RichN <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >We are a floor covering business that regularly checks out and of course back
> >in our floor covering samples. At the time we check them out, we get name,
> >address, phone #'s, CC#, sample name and so on. We have no way currently set
> >up to do this in a PC format, just hand written. We need help to be able to
> >track them in and out better so we can generate a report or something that
> >tells us what has not been turned back in but also what is the most popular
> >checked-out items.
>
> That's pretty straightforward in Access. You might want to do a quick Google
> search for "Access Library" - there are a number of good lending-library
> sample databases out there; you would only need to change their Books table to
> a Samples table with appropriate changes to fields.
>
> If you want to build it from scratch post back, it's a good learning example!
>
> John W. Vinson [MVP]
>

On Thu, 24 May 2007 07:56:00 -0700, RichN <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>Would love to learn to do it from scratch, just have not used Access before.
>Can you help?

First step is to get a good feel for how Access works, conceptually. At the
basis of the whole concept is "Normalization" - if you don't have properly
normalized tables, your whole project is on a shaky foundation!

Check some of the references in the websites below, particularly the "Database
Design 101" links on Jeff's site:

Jeff Conrad's resources page:
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/acc...resources.html

The Access Web resources page:
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

In a thumbnail sketch, you need to identify what kinds of "Entities" -
real-life things, persons, events - are of importance. Each kind of Entity
gets its own table; all of the information about that entity goes in that
table (and noplace else!!).

For a sample-checkout application your Entities will be the samples. So you'll
need a Samples table. You'll need some unique identifier for each sample (a
"primary key" in Access terms); my guess would be that you already have some
such identifier, and you should probably carry it over into your database, and
resist the persuasion to assign an Autonumber (if your identifier is unique,
stable, and reasonably short it's probably a better choice since your users
are familiar with it already).

Another entity would be the person checking out the sample. Again you need a
unique PersonID - you may have an employee badge number, or employee number,
or some such; if so, use it. If not you can assign an autonumber PersonID.
This table would have fields for FirstName, LastName , contact information,
office or location, etc.; information about the person (nothing about samples
or about what they've checked out).

Another entity would be an event - the event of someone checking out a sample.
This table would have a link - a "Foreign Key" - to each of these other
tables, identifying WHAT was checked out and to WHOM. You'll need other fields
such as the date and time checked out, the date and time checked back in (this
field will be NULL while the sample is out, which you can use later).

Once you have the tables you can start designing Forms to enter the
information: probably a Form for samples, and a Form for people with a Subform
for checkouts. Or maybe you want to focus on the samples, in which case you
could put the Checkouts subform on the Samples form. You could even do both!

To report what's checked out, who's checked things out when, and so on you
will create Reports based on Queries, probably queries that will join all
three tables.

Post back as you proceed, we'll try to help!

John W. Vinson [MVP]

I'm not sure that I agree with the 2-dimension 'you need normalization'
diagnosis

you need to know what it is and when to use it; and when to denormalize


"John W. Vinson" <jvinson@STOP_SPAM.WysardOfInfo.com> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Thu, 24 May 2007 07:56:00 -0700, RichN
> <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>>Would love to learn to do it from scratch, just have not used Access
>>before.
>>Can you help?
>
> First step is to get a good feel for how Access works, conceptually. At
> the
> basis of the whole concept is "Normalization" - if you don't have properly
> normalized tables, your whole project is on a shaky foundation!
>
> Check some of the references in the websites below, particularly the
> "Database
> Design 101" links on Jeff's site:
>
> Jeff Conrad's resources page:
> http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/acc...resources.html
>
> The Access Web resources page:
> http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html
>
> In a thumbnail sketch, you need to identify what kinds of "Entities" -
> real-life things, persons, events - are of importance. Each kind of Entity
> gets its own table; all of the information about that entity goes in that
> table (and noplace else!!).
>
> For a sample-checkout application your Entities will be the samples. So
> you'll
> need a Samples table. You'll need some unique identifier for each sample
> (a
> "primary key" in Access terms); my guess would be that you already have
> some
> such identifier, and you should probably carry it over into your database,
> and
> resist the persuasion to assign an Autonumber (if your identifier is
> unique,
> stable, and reasonably short it's probably a better choice since your
> users
> are familiar with it already).
>
> Another entity would be the person checking out the sample. Again you need
> a
> unique PersonID - you may have an employee badge number, or employee
> number,
> or some such; if so, use it. If not you can assign an autonumber PersonID.
> This table would have fields for FirstName, LastName , contact
> information,
> office or location, etc.; information about the person (nothing about
> samples
> or about what they've checked out).
>
> Another entity would be an event - the event of someone checking out a
> sample.
> This table would have a link - a "Foreign Key" - to each of these other
> tables, identifying WHAT was checked out and to WHOM. You'll need other
> fields
> such as the date and time checked out, the date and time checked back in
> (this
> field will be NULL while the sample is out, which you can use later).
>
> Once you have the tables you can start designing Forms to enter the
> information: probably a Form for samples, and a Form for people with a
> Subform
> for checkouts. Or maybe you want to focus on the samples, in which case
> you
> could put the Checkouts subform on the Samples form. You could even do
> both!
>
> To report what's checked out, who's checked things out when, and so on you
> will create Reports based on Queries, probably queries that will join all
> three tables.
>
> Post back as you proceed, we'll try to help!
>
> John W. Vinson [MVP]

Everyone please note that Aaron Kem.pf is attempting to impersonate one of
our regular posters again. Tom would never post such a message.

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
Blogs: www.DataDevilDog.BlogSpot.com, www.DatabaseTips.BlogSpot.com
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/ex...ributors2.html for contact
info.


"Tom Wickerath MDB" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm not sure that I agree with the 2-dimension 'you need normalization'
> diagnosis
>
> you need to know what it is and when to use it; and when to denormalize