[AccessD] Normalizing issue

Joe Hecht jmhecht at earthlink.net
Thu Jun 23 13:15:12 CDT 2005


In Designing my invitations tracking DB I looked at today's culture and now
have fields for 2 sets of first, middle and last names. I am still working
out the code for it but the basics would work here.

Joe Hecht
Los Angeles CA

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bartow
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:55 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Normalizing issue

I think so. But I hope you all come with a good answer to this so I can
store it in my tips & tricks db :o)

I've run into one really bad name example some years ago. I had an app that
tracked donors for an organization. The couple wanted BOTH of their names on
the address label and she used a hyphenated name but he didn't. Something
like "Joe Smith & Sue Jones-Smith".

I could have easily tracked them as individuals but they only wanted ONE
piece of mail.

I also could have also tracked them as an Organization or Business and used
"Joe Smith & Sue Jones-Smith" as an Organization name, with both of them
listed as contacts for the Organization but that didn't cover every single
instance of mailing and/or reports quite correctly and my customer didn't
want to offend any of their donors by accident.

I think we ended up putting his first & last name in the firstname field and
her first name and hyphenated last-name in the lastname field. Which of
course messed up the alphabetical internal lists of donors.

I considered adding a spousename field and doing some complicated queries to
get things correctly listed on the label but thankfully (for me anyway) they
left the area and quit donating to the organization - problem solved! So the
customer was happy and I quit thinking about it.

John B.


This is one of those never ending arguments, isn't it.  :)

Reuben Cummings
GFC, LLC
phone: 812.523.1017
email: reuben at gfconsultants.com

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