marti said:
I am a beginning access 2003 user.
I have a database that is used to track incoming phonecalls based on the
type of issue.
The different issues are listed in a table and appear in a drop down menu on
the main form.
I would like to reduce the number of issues listed in the dropdown menu,
without losing the historical data, by grouping the existing 60 issues into
18 categories.
Any ideas on how I can do this?
Thanks!
I had a similar issue with my billing database. I'd been logging
expenses by type, using an ad-hoc classification of my own. I later
found that HMRC (that's Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs, for the
amusement of non-Brits) have their own classification, with less categories.
My table for expense items has a link (foreign key) to a table of "my"
expense classes. I created a new table of HMRC expense classes, and
extended the table of "my" classes with a further field to hold a
reference to one of the HMRC-class records. (Classic many-to-one
relationship). I've carried on classifying things my way, as it
happens, but can easily run a report showing the HMRC classes instead if
I choose.
How you handle this may depend on whether your 18 categories are a
subset of the full 60, or a generalisation of them. In my case the HMRC
classes were a rather different breakdown, although it wasn't difficult
to put mine in their pigeon-holes. If they are a subset, and you simply
want to make it impossible to choose some of the minor ones in future,
then it's simply a question of adjusting the RowSource of the relevant
combo box to select only the ones you want to use in the future.
Alternatively, with judicious use of make-table and update queries, you
could first create a table holding a reference to each phonecall with a
reference to the old class, and you'd use this this to look up
historical data. Then (assuming this is appropriate) you could
re-classify everything with the new categories, based on the old ones.
Broad-brush, but I hope you get the idea?
Phil, London
