R
Ray Murphy
Hi All,
I'm a rank amateur with Access 2003, but need a simple Access data base
which can be given to a few hundred people for their own data entry.
The idea is for each person to start with an identical empty data base and
then key in data and then merge their whole database with any of the other
users of the program, but it seems the automatically generated ID numbers
create problems.
Basically we're just looking at:
(a) A main page with hundreds of subjects names and their birth dates.
(b) A sub form (or "file card") for each person where we enter (say) those
subject's home movie titles.
Currently I've got a "non-mergable" project working, but I'd like to be able
to make an extra column for personalised ID numbers for the main page and
also for the sub form entries so that there can be no clashes when merging.
For example if a user of the program was named William John Smith, he could
use a prefix of WJS for all ID numbers, and those ID's would replace the
Primary key.
This "WJS" could be entered manually when the program was installed, or
perhaps it could be built into his program before delivery.
It seems that if these personalised ID numbers were used, they would need to
be generated in the normal way and then (in the separate column) have the
prefix added in front of it.ie: WJS 1222 -- which would then become text
rather than a number. Presumably this would slow the program down a lot, but
it probably wouldn't matter for this purpose - as long as we can have
seamless merging.
I haven't got a clue at this stage if this is going to be hard or easy, but
any suggestions are welcome - including email addresses of anyone who can
knock up something like this for payment (I don't know anyone).
Direct contact is fine, although I may be away from the PC for a few days
soon.
Ray
I'm a rank amateur with Access 2003, but need a simple Access data base
which can be given to a few hundred people for their own data entry.
The idea is for each person to start with an identical empty data base and
then key in data and then merge their whole database with any of the other
users of the program, but it seems the automatically generated ID numbers
create problems.
Basically we're just looking at:
(a) A main page with hundreds of subjects names and their birth dates.
(b) A sub form (or "file card") for each person where we enter (say) those
subject's home movie titles.
Currently I've got a "non-mergable" project working, but I'd like to be able
to make an extra column for personalised ID numbers for the main page and
also for the sub form entries so that there can be no clashes when merging.
For example if a user of the program was named William John Smith, he could
use a prefix of WJS for all ID numbers, and those ID's would replace the
Primary key.
This "WJS" could be entered manually when the program was installed, or
perhaps it could be built into his program before delivery.
It seems that if these personalised ID numbers were used, they would need to
be generated in the normal way and then (in the separate column) have the
prefix added in front of it.ie: WJS 1222 -- which would then become text
rather than a number. Presumably this would slow the program down a lot, but
it probably wouldn't matter for this purpose - as long as we can have
seamless merging.
I haven't got a clue at this stage if this is going to be hard or easy, but
any suggestions are welcome - including email addresses of anyone who can
knock up something like this for payment (I don't know anyone).
Direct contact is fine, although I may be away from the PC for a few days
soon.
Ray