Conditional Format Question

[Guest]

I am trying to do a trick on a continuous form (datasheet, tabular or
whatever). I am trying to mimic a Block Report or Pivot report. Since a
report is not as easy to interact with, I need a few features that forms
give. (Some reasons are resort on the fly, command buttons, locking out
certain fields from bing edited while some can be edited, etc). But I like
the way you can make the group “header†cause the first column cascade (see
below). I have many groups on one “report.†I think this may be accomplished
thru conditional formatting (or coding) by making the first item in each
report normal but making the following item of the same field in the next
record white text. This makes long lists easier to read. A pivot table of
Report is giving us grief but the continuous forms work great. Of course we’d
like to improve the readability. It’s a shame the Reports weren’t designed
to interact in a more modern fashion. This is the 21st century.

Order-Line Part No
123456-001 02340w
123456-001 o65i0w
123456-001 4r020w
123456-002 4r02lw
123456-002 4r02rw
123456-003 026w0w
123456-003 7bpw0w
123456-004 7bpw0w
123456-004 02w00w
123456-004 4ff10w

NEW REPORT

Order-Line Part No
123456-001 02340w
o65i0w
4r020w
123456-002 4r02lw
4r02rw
123456-003 026w0w
7bpw0w
123456-004 7bpw0w
02w00w
4ff10w

Any help would be great and really appreciated,
jim

 

[Guest]

I don't know of any way you can accomplish what you want to do. The reason
for my response is your inane comment about reports being more interactive
and noting we are in the 21st Century. Look up the word Report in a
dictionary. It is a representation of a set of data. It is not intended to
be interactive. Forms are intended to be interactive.

The real problem here is your design. Reconsider how you display data for
the user. Do they really need to see all that at once?

 

[David C. Holley]

I would concur with Klatuu's assesment of the comment. I would suggest
that its not a matter of wether or not a report is interactive as it is
a matter of defining what you mean by interactive and then building
something to provide that. If you're looking for something that can
twist and turn and change the data, a stand-alone report is not what
your looking for. (How many times have you seen a printed report with
interactive capability AFTER its been printed?)

 

[Guest]

Perhaps i misspoke. Here's the scoop. What i need for people in our company
(3-4 people will use the layout I am looking for) is the ability to select a
group of records, see them on screen, place a show/hide button for each
group, and then print. All should be done as fast as possible, as they may be
doing 25-30 at a time. Each Report will be anywhere from a few lines to 20
pages. A Pivot Report is interactive as well as a Drill Down datasheet. But
these people are not computersavy so I have to engineer a report that they
can easily interreact with. They want to type a job order, select a list,
check the status (thru the on-screen report), select the groups to show and
print out the final list. They will then hand it off to stock people and
gather parts.

Right now i have a continuous (tabular) form to show data and check off
those lines or groups that don't need to print. In the header i have a Job
order text box, a command button that is keyed to accept a new work order
that is typed in the text box and a macro button to print the report. The
report reads the Job Order text box to retrieve the query parameter. All of
this involves a few queries, a macro, a report, and a couple of tables. It
would be nice to pare this down to a form and a query and a table. It could
then printed in the layout that our Main database program prints (block
report style for easy readability, although that program is slow and requires
several dialogue boxes to select data). My current method works. But as their
needs change, i'd like it to be easier to create new reports. Or is this
about the best way to do this?

The report, per se, is not interactive but it's about the flexability to
create the printed report. I appologize for upsetting Klatuu (Klatuu, Barada
Nicto) but Microsoft, in my opinion, has a small problem with the Report
section of Access. Although i mostly love Access, i detest the Reports
section. You have to build the report, then create triggers, and then print
it out. You can't e-mail directly. You have to have a viewer (it has to be
installed on all the computers, and IS/IT dept. freaks out). the html method
is ok but some of the formatting gets screwd up. Or you have to make a
template. If you want to link Excel data or into Word, hmm. It's late and i'm
rambling.

But my take on the definition of report is a "statement". When you get a
report, someone always wants to "spin" it, so they can understand it better.
If a Pivot Report is an interactive report (of course it has some faults of
it's own), is there something that can be done to make the Access reports
more e-friendy for less experienced users who expect interactivity? As my
coworkers always say "Great! I've got all the info I need. Now, how can I
shorten the list and make it easier to read." There's just no satisfying some
people.

Sorry to offend. If ignorance is bliss, then why aren't I smilin'?
thanks,
Jackle

 

[David C. Holley]

You may want to read up on QUERY BY FORM as the technique is basically
what your looking for. Essentially its using a FORM to gather criteria
and then query the database. In your scenario, you'll probably have two
command buttons (VIEW RECORDS and PRINT REPORT). VR would open a form
that simply displays the records. PR would open a report that prints the
records.

 

[Guest]

essencially that's what i'm doing. i'm actually using a parameter Pop-up
instead of the Query By Form. My method must colse the current form before
retrieving a nwe recordset. I will try the query By Form. It looks like a
better choice. Otherwise, it sound like you're saying the rest of the concept
of how I'm doing it is probably the best way to do it. After trial and error,
this method is the best way to use the "Do Not Print This Group" buttons to
select which groups of records in a set don't need to be printed.

thabks very much for your time.
Jackle

~~~~~

 

[David C. Holley]

It is possible to change a forms recordSet on the fly using VBA - just
make certain that all of the field names stay the same otherwise you'll
have problems with the controlSources for the form fields. One of the
design approaches that I've used to put unbound form fields in the form
header and the results in the detail section of the form. This creates a
situation where the form never needs to be open/closed between searches.

"Otherwise, it sound like you're saying the rest of the concept
of how I'm doing it is probably the best way to do it."
I was a bit difficult to follow given the detailed description, but
probably.