Advice on Setting up a Form to Store Linked/Embedded Objects

[Guest]

Hi - I'd like to get some help in designing a form to store linked/embedded
objects.

I'm trying to design a 'lessons learned' database. Here's an example:

Say we have a pump motor that has given us problems. I want to be able to
have people enter the nature of the problem on a form, and use pull down
menus etc to enter keywords (from a list and pulldown menus). The problem -
I'd like to have people 'hit a button' or be able to drag and drop a picture
of the motor (if we have one, and there could be several pictures) a word
document, excel spreadsheet, e-mail etc. Each entry could have no documents
to attach or many. I need to be able to save the form, and then be ready for
the next input.

Once the database is populated, I need to be able to search on the keyword
etc to be able to pull up the record and attached documents.

I'm not sure how to do this - I've set up a form, with other stuff I need,
but don't know how to set up the part where the docs attach. I feel like I
should use a subform, but don't know if that's best, or if it's needed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks

 

[Guest]

You will need the sub form for multiple documents,
For this at least 2 tables are needed
1:A master table where the description of the problem is going to be
entered, I recommend you use an Autonumber as your primary key field
(Problem_Id), this table for the main form
2:The table containing the documents should have a Field of type OLE Object,
with a field (Problem_Id) relating to table 1, use this table for the subform

Relate your main form and subform using the Master and Child link fields in
your subform properties, in this case both should be Problem_Id

To insert the documents/objects you'll need to right click on the OLE field
in the subform and select insert object, you can paste or create any document
supported in your computer setup