plz help

[Guest]

Hi I am in the process of putting together a database and my boss is not too
familiar with Access and neither am I. I was wondering if there is any way
to create "subfields" in Access. For example, I am looking to make a main
heading "Contact Information" and then subcolumns within that column with
headings such as "email address," "phone," etc. Thank you for your help.

 

[RBear3]

Why don't you take a look at some sample databases on the Microsoft website.
There re several out there for contact management type applications.

If you are asking about the ability to create one-to-many relationships
(John has three email addresses, but Sue has four), then that is handled one
of several ways. You could create one table like the following:

tblContacts
FirstName
LastName
Inactive Y/N
Address1
Address2
City
State
Zip
HomePhone
WorkPhone
CellPhone
FaxPhone
CarPhone
HomeEmail
WorkEmail
AlternateEmail
etc.


Or, you can create multiple tables where a variable number of items can be
added. These are tied together by a "contact number" or similar key field.
This is really the optimal way to handle one-to-many relationships, but most
people don't bother on things like phone numbers and emails. Now, if we
talk about children, then you would definitely wnat to do it this way
because some people might have no kids, and others might have ten. No
matter how many fields you build in, you'll always get someone with more
kids than you first thought! If you store kids names, and birthdates, then
that would require twenty or more fields in a simgel table, but only three
fields (key, name, date) in a normalized design.

tblContacts
ContactNumber
Inactive Y/N
FirstName
LastName
Address1
Address2
City
State
Zip

tblPhoneNumbers
ContactNumber
PhoneType (Home, Work, Cell, etc.)
PhoneNumber

tblEmails
ContactNumber
EmailType
EmailAddress

 

[BruceM]

There is a big distinction in a relational database (such as Access) between
how the data are stored and how they are presented. If the data are
properly stored in a well-organized structure, you can probably do whatever
you need in terms of presentation.
The caveat is that Access is in part a program development tool, unlike Word
or Excel, which present you with some version of a document on which you can
start typing. With Access, you are actually building the application, not
just adding data to it. For this reason, among others, there is a fairly
steep learning curve. It can be well worthwhile to learn Access, but it
will take some time. Familiarizing yourself with design fundamentals is a
good place to start. One source of information can be found here (in Tips
for Casual Users, look under Design).
http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html

There are many other sources. Some, including some tutorials, may be found
through the Links link on the right side of Allen's web site. Among the
links is:
http://www.mvps.org/access/
This site includes a Resources link among other information.