1st time Access Database

[harris128]

I am trying to create a database to allow our employees to locate artwork for
4 different product types, silkscreens, metalphoto, labels, and misc.

The artwork physically resides in individual folders, in 4-drawer file
cabinets.

I have created a customer table from quickbooks import of Customer, Contact,
Phone, Fax, and ProductID.

I was going to imput the artwork in a Product table, with the following
fields:
ProductID, Customer, Product Name, Drawing Number, Revision, DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No), and Location.

I want the employees to be able to query the artwork by Customer, ProductID,
Part Number to find the location of said artwork.

The file cabinets will be labeled:
S=silkscreen -1 thru 4 (for the drawer)
M=Metalphoto
L=Label
M=Misc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated with proper relationships, forms for
data entry, query form, etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Steve]

The suggested tables are:
TblState
StateID
State

TblCustomer
CustomerID
LastName
FirstName
Address
City
StateID
PostalCode
Phone
Fax
Email

TblCustomerContact
CustomerContactID
CustomerID
LastName
FirstName
Phone
Fax
Email

TblFileCabinet
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetIdentification

TblFileCabinetDrawer
FileCabinetDrawerID
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetDrawerNumber

TblProduct
ProductID
ProductName
Drawing Number
Revision
DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No)
FileCabinetDrawerID
Inventory

TblOrder
OrderID
CustomerID
OrderDate
PONumber

TblOrderDetail
OrderDetailID
OrderID
ProductID
Quantity
Price
DateShipped

Steve

 

[harris128]

I have created the following tables per your suggestion:

TblCustomer
CustomerID
Phone
Fax

TblFileCabinet
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetIdentification

TblFileCabinetDrawer
FileCabinetDrawerID
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetDrawerNumber

TblProduct
ProductID
ProductName
Drawing Number
Revision
DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No)
FileCabinetDrawerID

My question what 2 fields can I use to create a relationship between
TblCustomer and the other 3 tables?

Thanks,
harris128

 

[Steve]

The other three tables are not related to TblCustomer! They identify File
Cabinets, File Cabinet Drawers and Products (Artworks). TblCustomer is only
related to TblOrder to identify the customer who placed each order.

Steve

 

[harris128]

Ok, there are no customer orders, since these artworks already exist. I just
need a way to tie the customerIDs to the may different artworks. I guess
this would be a one to many relationship?

harris128

 

[Steve]

How do customers relate to artworks? Typically customers buy (order)
products.

Steve

 

[harris128]

These artworks are already inhouse. I am trying to automate finding the
artwork in our vast number of file cabinets. At the moment, the artwork data
is written down in a spiral notebook, and we have to manually flip through
pages upon pages to try and find anything.

harris128

 

[Steve]

OK but how are customers associated with the artworks? Do customers buy
artworks from you?

Steve

 

[harris128]

Yes the order silk screening / metalphoto ID Plates / Labels, all of which
require artwork generated. But we roll the cost of the artwork into the
quote for whatever the customer is ordering, because a lot of the jobs/orders
are repeated, so we keep the artwork inhouse so we don't incur the expense of
regenerating new artwork each time the customer re-orders.

harris128

 

[Steve]

Now I am confused!!!

In a previous post you said, " ..... Ok, there are no customer orders ..."

and here you say customers order and reorder ??????

Steve

 

[harris128]

I'm sorry. I guess the point I'm trying to make is I don't need to track the
customer's orders. I have a customer table populated from quickbooks
information. I need a database to be able to physically locate the artwork
associated with each customer and each product. I do not need to keep track
of any customer orders.

I need to be physically be able to locate the thousands of different
artworks by:
Customer
Product (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other)
Drawing #
Filing Cabinet
Filing Cabinet Drawer

I will need to input all the data for each artwork already inhouse.

After that process is finished, I would like to be able to query the
database by:

Customer
Product (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other)
Drawing #

And have the query return the location by Filing Cabinet & Drawer of the
artwork query.

When a new artwork is generated, I will input all the data to keep the
database up to date.

harris128

 

[Steve]

Here's how I interpret what you have; correct me if this is incorrect ....
You have certain products (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other). There
are multiple items of each product. These "raw" products are stored in file
drawers in multiple file cabinets. Customers purchase a product and you
convert the product into a custom artwork. The custom artwork is also stored
in file drawers in multiple file cabinets. At some point the custom artwork
is shipped to the customer. Periodically you inventory the "raw" products
and restock your inventory.

Steve

 

[harris128]

Steve:

The "raw" products consist of artwork we created for the customer to make
the (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other).

The custom artwork is not shipped to the customer, but is used inhouse to
create their (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other) product. The artwork
stays inhouse in our file cabinets.

Think of the artwork as a mold we make to create an end-product the customer
orders. The customer does not need the mold, but we use it to create the
customer's end-product. Hence the mold (or artwork) stays inhouse and filed
incase the customer orders more of the end-product. We then locate the mold
(or artwork) and create more product for the customer.

And Steve, I want to thank you for being so patient with a database noob.

harris128

 

[Steve]

The suggested revised tables are:
TblState
StateID
State

TblCustomer
CustomerID
LastName
FirstName
Address
City
StateID
PostalCode
Phone
Fax
Email

TblCustomerContact *** Optional
CustomerContactID
CustomerID
LastName
FirstName
Phone
Fax
Email

TblFileCabinet
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetIdentification

TblFileCabinetDrawer
FileCabinetDrawerID
FileCabinetID
FileCabinetDrawerNumber

TblProduct
ProductID
ProductName (silk screen / metelphoto / label / other)

TblCustomerEndProduct
CustomerEndProductID
CustomerID
ProductID
DrawingNumber
Revision
DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No)
FileCabinetDrawerID

Your query would include all the above tables except TblContact. The query
only needs the fields where you can set criteria and other fields you want
to display in your search results. With proper criteria you could find the
file cabinet and drawer for any piece of artwork.

Is this what you want?

Steve

 

[Beetle]

I understand what you're saying, and it shouldn't be very complicated to set
up, but there is one imortant question that I don't think has been addressed
yet (maybe it was and I missed it). Can an individual piece of artwork ever
be used to produce a product (silk screen, etc.) for more than one
customer, or is each one specific to only one customer? The answer to
this question is key to the proper table design.

 

[harris128]

To answer Sean's question, let me explain. Many our our customers are
government contractors who are bidding on the same government projects, so it
is possible to have the same artwork for more than one customer. What has
been done in the manual system is the employee would write down in the spiral
notebook, for customer ABC, drawing 1234 (see customer XYZ).

It even becomes more complicated in the fact that one customer will request
drawing 1234 Rev A, whereas the next customer will request drawing 1234, Rev
C.

I would prefer to keep the individual drawing, with the customer that has
requested it. If a different customer requests the same drawing, I would
want to keep that drawing with that customer.

harris128

 

[Beetle]

I'm not completely clear on how you handle different revisions of
the same drawing, but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to
assume that Drawing 1234-RevA could, in theory, be kept in a
different drawer than Drawing 1234-RevC, and therefore they should
be treated as two separate drawings, even though they are based on
the same "Parent" drawing. So, essentially you have a many-to-many
relationship between the customers and each individual revision of
a drawing. Based on that assumption, an appropriate table structure
might look like;

Note: PK = Primary Key, FK = Foreign Key

tblCustomers
**********
CustomerID (PK)
LastName
FirstName
other fields related specifically to the customer

tblDrawings
*********
DrawingID (PK)
Description
other fields related to each "Parent" drawing

tblFileCabinets
***********
FileCabinetID (PK)
FileCabinetDescription
Location

tblDrawers
********
DrawerID (PK)
Description
FileCabinetID (FK to tblFileCabinets)

tblRevisions
*********
RevisionID (PK)
RevisionNumber
DrawingID (FK to tblDrawings)
DrawerID (FK to tblDrawers)

tblCustomerDrawings
****************
CustomerID (FK to tblCustomers)
RevisionID (FK to tblRevisions)
DateRequested
(in this table, you could use the above three fields as a combined PK, or
you could add your own surrofate PK like CustomerDrawingID)

If my assumption about the revisions is wrong, post back and we can give
it another go.

 

[harris128]

Ok, does the PK relate to the FK by having the same field name? Hence, this
is how the "relational" part of relarionship database works?

harris128

 

[Beetle]

Yes. the table on the "many" side of the relationship has a FK field that
holds the PK value from the table on the "one" side of the relationship.

 

[Steve]

Be careful .... You are being led down a primrose path.

< ....Can an individual piece of artwork ever be used to produce a product
(silk screen, etc.) for more than one
customer...... >

This scenario is covered in the design of the tables I gave you.
TblCustomerEndProduct
CustomerEndProductID
CustomerID
ProductID
DrawingNumber
Revision
DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No)
FileCabinetDrawerID

If it was the same artwork,
ProductID
DrawingNumber
Revision
DashNumber,
Serilized(Yes/No)
would all be the same. Maybe FileCabinetDrawerID would also be the same. All
it takes is to add a new record to TblCustomerEndProduct where CustomerID
would be different and Access would generate a different
CustomerEndProductID. For this scenario, you would thus have two records in
TblCustomerEndProduct.

To answer your question in this post ...
<...does the PK relate to the FK by having the same field name...>
The answer is NO! A PK relates to a FK SOLELY by connecting the PK in a
table to a field in another table in the Relationships Window or
programatically connecting the PK in a table to a field in another table.
Either way, the relationship holds everywhere in the database. Connecting
two fields can also be done in the query window but that relationship only
holds for the query and nowhere else in the database.The field names are
irrelvant! However good design practice names the fields the same. It's just
like putting ID at the end of a field name. ID shows the field is a PK or FK
but that's all.

Steve