Relationships and other advice

[Guest]

I have created a database in access 2002. I am familiar with flat databases
but when it comes to relationships it goes right over my head. I am trying
to organize a lot of people booking multiple hotels. Each hotel has multiple
categories and only so many rooms for each category. I had created a table
with the customers, then a table for each hotel and their categories. Then I
thought I would need a table for reservations to link both together but when
I tried the relationship thing nothing worked. I had added customer names
and added some hotels to test but I couldn't figure out what to next to get
the information added to each other. My ultimate goal is to connect
everything and then add a table to organize the rooming list when I get the
individuals names. I hope this makes sense to someone. If anyone has any
adive or samples I would really appreciate it

 

[Tim Ferguson]

I am trying to organize a lot of people booking multiple
hotels. Each hotel has multiple categories and only so many rooms for
each category.

Okay: you have already mentioned a number of entities:

Hotels
Rooms (will need a FK referencing Hotels)
Categories
Categorisations (will need FKs for Rooms and Categories)

People (might be better calling the customers? bookers? etc)
Bookings (FK into People, Rooms, and some method of dating them)

My ultimate goal is to connect everything

Just to be picky: this is a method to achieve some _business_ goal. It's
not an end in itself. Your goal should be "allow the booking clerk to
handle phone calls faster", or "be able to offer discount for frequent
bookers", or "adjust charges according demand for different catgories"
etc.

and then add a table to organize the rooming list
when I get the individuals names.

Ditto.

Hotel reservation systems strike me as falling into the far-from-trivial
category. Are you sure you know enough about db design and Access (or can
learn enough in the time available) to bet your business on? Have you
looked around for established systems?-- the same question is asked by
every hotel/ pension/ boarding house and there are bound to be several
solutions already out there.

All the best


Tim F