Query design

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
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Guest

I am very new to Access, but have had a moderate degree of success in the
last couple of weeks modifying data for use in mail merges. This has required
formatting data mainly, say changing a Date of Birth to numeric value from a
long date. Fairly simple stuff I am sure. I have used a good few Iff
functions to check for null fields, and trap errors, but each new function
for me has resulted in a new column in my datasheet view of the query. I know
these can be hidden, but is it necessary or even advisable to attempt to
combine these separate functions into fewer steps?

By example I took a DOB in "long format" and then Date of Birth:formatted it
to dd/mm/yyyy, then checked this for null values, etc etc, each adding
another column to the query.
It doesn't look very tidy

..Once before I was able to neaten up a query by cutting and pasting the SQL
bits, but this seems very complicated.

Any opinions? Fewest possible steps, or one step at a time?

Thanks,
Ian
 
Well, without seeing what you're doing, it is hard to answer. I realize it
may be long, but try posting the SQL view of the query so that we can see
it.

Do you need to format the date in the query? If you're going to use the date
in Access, you can probably just use it and format it in whatever textbox is
going to display it when you're ready for that. If you're exporting the data
to something else that needs the date in a certain format, then you'll need
to format it in the query.
 
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