[AccessD] Question of Approach

>>> "James Button" <jamesbutton at blueyonder.co.uk> 1/29/2014 9:46 AM >>>
"Contrary to Gary's approach; I would have one table for the answers, or maybe one table for each of the 'age-group' surveys - where you add columns when new fields are required, setting the entries in all new entries in existing entries to null when you change the table. That way the data can still be queried as a set."
***** Oh, no, the questions will not change...or at least, I'm not even considering that approach for this. 
 

"As you may have multiple sets of answers for each age-group, maybe have a date~timestamp on the answer sets so analysis can be done using a VIEW that excludes any but the latest (max(date~timestamp)) set of each age set for each client. Maybe a 'deleted' marker and 2 timestamps - entry creation and last updated if you are going to retain a history of entries/amendments (never a good idea to physically delete entries, as there is always someone who will select 'delete' by mistake) You could use a sequential counter, to denote the latest entry but again that requires extra work at data entry time."
 
***** Actually, yes, I've already added a date-stamp for the surveys. This is one of the things that was missing. 
 
...I've got to tell you how all of this started...sort of an "OT" w/in the subject, if you will. I was asked by a co-worker, last week, if I'd look at this...they all think Access is some big magical being...because it, "wasn't working." Well, our network has completely changed since they've last used this program, and the link was pointing to an old Novell location, which is now a Windows Active Directory network. I changed the links to the proper location and it worked. 
 
I should have ran for cover at that moment. However, during a brief conversation w/the user, she was a bit confused over the use of this, so I figured I'd whip up some forms for her...menus pointing to where she wanted to go. Then, while doing this...which I planned on spending maybe an hour or two (whip up some reports as well)...I discovered that these entries she was making were basically useless and were unusable. I brought it to her attention and agreed to help her out. 

 

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