Subform to select from list

[Guest]

Hi. Previous attempts have failed!
I have Contacts that donate AuctionGifts for Auctions. I have 3 tables
currently:

Contacts
Containing Contact info (name,addres...)

tblAuctions
AuctionID
AuctionName

tblAuctionGifts
AuctionGiftsID
ContactID
ShortDescription
ItemValue...

I built a form based on Contacts, with a subform based on tblAuctionGifts.
I created a donation card (report) showing which Contact donated which Gift
for which Acution. One card per gift. All is going fairly well!

Now the twist: Sometimes we "package" auction items so that we could have a
basket containing ContactA's ItemB along with ContactC's ItemD.

I'd like to have a form based on Basket name (as yet, no table and no clue),
with a subform giving me a list of all items for a given auction. I'd like
to combo box those items into a Basket, flagging those items chosen for a
basket as "not available" (so that when I create the next Basket, ItemB and
ItemD from above are not available and don't appear in the combo box). Then
I'd like to run donation "cards" based on all items that were not chosen for
a basket (stand-alone items) as well as all Baskets (which would show a
combination of auction items per basket).

I've tried to create the table structure but have failed miserably. Can it
be done? Any suggestions as to tables and form set up? Our auction is soon
and I'm just not seeing the vision. Thanks for your time- I appreciate it!

 

[Nikos Yannacopoulos]

Stephanie,

Take one step at a time! Having a 'vision' of the desired functionality
is positive, but before you get to building the user interface, you need
to take all the time required to get your data structure right, or the
UI development will soon become a nightmare. Once you have a robust data
structure in place, the rest of the pieces will fall in place much easier.

So: your data structure so far looks OK, except you need some means of
linking items to auctions aka baskets in your terms (it's actually
called a lot)... that is, if you are indeed thinking of auctions =
baskets (one to one). In this case, you just need to add a field
AuctionID (FK on and Auctions). Unassigned items will simply have this
field empty (null).

If, on the contrary, you are thinking of an auction as a day's event,
made up of several baskets (lots) - which seems to make sense, if you
are interested in logging dates, venues etc. in tblAuctions - then you
need one more table, tblBasket (or tblLot) with fields BasketID PK),
AuctionID (FK on tblAuctions), BasketName etc. In this case, the new
field added to tblAuctionGifts would be BasketID (FK on tblBaskets).
Again, unassigned items would have this field empty (null).

Hope this is all clear and helps.
Nikos