[AccessD] miracle required apparently

[jack drawbridge]

Steve,

I did submit a response, but now recognize I did not/have not addressed the
"key issue". I did not account for 1 participant per activity per session.
Oh well, it still was a challenge for me ----just not the one you had
requested.
I'm sure someone at AccessD will have a solution.

Jack

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 9:22 PM Steve Schapel <
steve at datamanagementsolutions.biz> wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I'm trying to do something that I initially thought would be reasonably
> easy.  But alas, so far success has eluded me.  Any insights accepted
> with much gratitude!
>
> The goal:  Assign a number of Participants to a number of Activities
> over a number of Sessions.
>
> Very simple example:
>      4 Sessions
>      4 Activities
>      8 Participants (therefore 2 per Activity)
>
> To illustrate:
> Let's say the sessions are 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm.
> Let's sat the activities are chess, tai chi, bowls, diving
> Let's say the participants are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H
>
> The stipulation is that each participant should do each activity one
> time.
>
> By trial and error brute force, I know that there is at least one
> solution, namely:
>
>                       chess       tai chi       bowls        diving
>    9am           A & E        C & F        D & G        B & H
> 10am           C & G       A & H       B & E         D & F
> 11am           D & H      B & G        A & F         C & E
> 12pm           B & F       D & E        C & H        A & G
>
> HOWEVER, I have tried multiple angles of looping through nested (and
> sometimes randomised) recordsets based on the core data elements
> (sessions, activities, and participants), to write the assignments to
> the available slots in a schedule table, and to my shock (and horror) we
> always reach the point in the procedure where it gets stuck, due to
> trying to assign a participant to two activities in the same session,
> but with no valid alternative slot available.
>
> There is no problem if the model calls for the super simple option of
> only one participant for each activity.  But otherwise, no dice, so far.
>
> There MUST be a way to make this work?  Surely?
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> Regards
> Steve
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