avoid duplicates on label report?

[Susan]

I have a Access table containing members, addresses, and date that dues were
mailed. Since some members pay or donate more than once a year, there are
duplicate records for last names and addresses since the date is part of the
primary key. So when I create a labels report for mailing information, there
are some duplicate addresses.

Is there a way to set up an automatic filter, query, whatever? and then the
label report so I just click the labels report and the duplicate records
would not be used?

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Wayne-I-M]

Hi Susan

Just base the lable on a query based on the table holding the members
details this way - assuming you have set up the table right - there will not
be any duplication

 

[John W. Vinson]

I have a Access table containing members, addresses, and date that dues were
mailed. Since some members pay or donate more than once a year, there are
duplicate records for last names and addresses since the date is part of the
primary key. So when I create a labels report for mailing information, there
are some duplicate addresses.

Is there a way to set up an automatic filter, query, whatever? and then the
label report so I just click the labels report and the duplicate records
would not be used?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Wayne's suggestion is right on the money (as usual), but if your table
structure is incorrect (with duplicated data in your table) and you're not in
a position to fix it, you could base the report on a Query selecting only the
name and address field, and set the query's Unique Values property to Yes.

 

[Susan]

I do not know enough about table structure yet. I understand about
duplicates. I have multiple dates for for individual people. If I just
used the name and street address for the key in table then I would not be
able to add record with different date. I guess the proper structure for
name and street for primary key would involve one record with the name and
street address and multiple dates and deposits like an array or table? A
table within a table--is this it? I do not have enough knowledge of Access
at this point to know how to set this up. If you have information that
would address setting up the proper structure, I would love to read it. Is
there some terms for this I could google?

I did set up a query and setting up the unique value though.

Thanks,
Susan

 

[John W. Vinson]

I do not know enough about table structure yet. I understand about
duplicates. I have multiple dates for for individual people. If I just
used the name and street address for the key in table then I would not be
able to add record with different date. I guess the proper structure for
name and street for primary key would involve one record with the name and
street address and multiple dates and deposits like an array or table? A
table within a table--is this it? I do not have enough knowledge of Access
at this point to know how to set this up. If you have information that
would address setting up the proper structure, I would love to read it. Is
there some terms for this I could google?

Each kind of Entity - a real-life person, thing, or event - should have its
own Table, with one record per instance of that entity. For example, you
should have a table of People, with one record for each person; a table for
Addresses (or possibly include the address in the People table if each person
has one and only one address of interest to your application; you may need a
second table if you need a home address, shipping address, and vacation
address, say); and a table of dates related one to many to the table of
people.

Here are some resources you can use: take a look at the Normalization topic in
Crystal's tutorial, for starters.

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

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

A free tutorial written by Crystal (MS Access MVP):
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials:
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

 

[Wayne-I-M]

Excellent John,

I never known what Entity "really" meant - but I do now. I have seen the
word many times (in your and other vp's and Ken Sherridans answers and other
people) but never really understand it - but I do now.

Thanks for that