[AccessD] OT Friday Stuff

Reminds me of a state bureaucrat I used to know. For years she would send
out an annual update of a "Time Reporting" database application that the
local employees used to keep track of the time they spent on state funded
programs. In the data entry they would have to enter the date, the year and
the quarter. The only thing she changed over the entire time she did this
was to add the new year and quarters to lookup tables (4 digit number for
year e.g. "1999" and: 99-1, 99-2, 99-3, 99-4 for the quarters). Of course
she also had to adjust the reports so they would print out for the new year
and/or quarter. The reports had hard coded year and/or quarter - there were
5 reports. There was no routine to get rid of the old data and there was no
way to print out reports or use the old data in any manner (which a number
of local people wanted to do so they started to duplicate the database and
keep the old application in order to be able to get the reports for each
year. Some offices had 5 of these applications/databases set up!

The funny part: She really wasn't aware that she could just let the users
enter the date and filter the reports for year and/or quarter based on that!

Well, we fixed all that and she has never issued another update (wipes sweat
from his forehead).

John B.
Another complicated programming issue solved by (drum roll and horn blasts
please) Super-Programmer!
(As he places his hands on his hips and thrusts out his chest!)
;o)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of
> Hollis,Virginia
> Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 8:57 AM
> To: 'accessd at databaseadvisors.com'
> Subject: [AccessD] OT Friday Stuff
>
>
> Ok, good one for a Friday. I just had someone call me that is
> trying to work
> on a database. This database tracks data for each year, 2001,
> 2002, and they
> are trying to enter the new data for 2003.
>
> Here is the good part - they can't figure out why the previous
> years data is
> changing when they change something - they saved the form as a new form
> "2003".
>
> Virginia
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