AboutScottgem Expertise I can answer almost all types of questions relating to Microsoft Access usage and application design. My strengths are database and interface design.
Experience I've been designing databases for over 15 years working with dBase, FoxPro, Approach and Access.
Organizations Author of Microsoft Office Access 2007 VBA Techncial Editor for Special Edition Using Microsoft Access 2007 and Access 2007 Forms, Reports & Queries From Que Publishing
Question I have 3 databases. Customer, Software and PC. It's sort of a software tracking system. Shows who is using the license, on what computer is it loaded and where the person's office(and the pc) are. I would want the customers location info, machine info and all of the software loaded on their machine to display on my form. How does a sub form fit in? If I link them the way you said, would I also have to design a 'button" that would display the required info in the text boxes?
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Followup To
Question -
I have a form created with text boxes and labels to specify the fields. I have already created a customer table for the customer's personal information and one for the products they order. I want to be able to type in a customers ID # in one of the text boxes)or another field that I specify), click a button and have all the other fields fill in based on values in the database. I am having trouble linking the text boxes on the form to the database and the button that runs the 'query'. Can you help?
Answer -
What you should do is create a BOUND form. This is done by setting the recordsource property to your table and the Controlsource of each control to your fields. Or better yet, use the wizard to create your form.
Once this is done, you can use the combobox Wizard to create a search combo where you can choose the customer and bring up their record.
If you want to display the products they order in the same form, then use a subform.
BTW you should have 2 tables for orders. One for the specific order info (order#, orderdate, shipping info, etc.) and one for the order details, each individual item they order.
Check the Northwinds sample database that comes with Access for examples.
Hope this helps,
Scott<>
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Answer You should really read up on subforms in Access Help or an Access book. Let me try to give you some background here. First, I think you are using a term incorrectly. A database is a collection of objects (tables, forms, queries, repoirts, etc.) That manages a set of information. I think you are saying you have thre TABLES in your database, not three databases.
There are 2 ways to build forms in Access; bound and unbound. With bound forms, the form and the controls on it are bound to a table or query. On a bound form, Access handles the interaction between the form and the table. The controls are populated, navigation is handled, data is saved, all more or less automatically. With Unbound forms, the developer has to write code to do all that. Working with bound forms is WAY easier. The advantage of unbound forms is greater control over the data entry process.
A form can only be bound to one table or query. However, queries may not be updateable, especially if they consist of multiple tables. Therefore, to handle interaction with mutliple tables we use subforms. On a bound form, the subform is automatically linked to a key field on the main form so when the main form record is displayed, the rerlated records are displayed in the subform.
I have a similar app for my department. I have a main form that is bound to the PC table. I have tables for users, hardware and software. I have two subforms for those two tables, both linked to the main form on PC ID that display the hardware and software installed on that PC.
Again, I suggest you look at the Northwinds sample database. All this is illustrated there and it should help you get a better understanding.
