access tagging records

[Nico]

Hi,

I have a question regarding database design. I would like to create records
of people and companies, and tag them, similar to del.icio.us. I thought of
creating a seperate table for the tags, but then each person or contact
should be able to have an unlimited number of tags, created on-the-fly. How
could I organise that? The only way I could come up with is to create a
seperate table of tags, companies and people, and record each link between a
tag and a company or person seperately. Is there a better way?

Thanks for any answers,
Nico

 

[mscertified]

"I have a question regarding database design. I would like to create records
of people and companies, and tag them, similar to del.icio.us."

I don't understand this. What part of 'del.icio.us' is the people and what
part the company? What do you mean by a 'tag'.
When creating a database you normally first analyze the data model. You
separate your data into objects which form the basis for separate tables. The
tables are then related together via keys and foreign keys. This is the way
Access works and the way you must design your database to be able to take
advantage of the SQL query language.

-Dorian

 

[John Vinson]

Hi,

I have a question regarding database design. I would like to create records
of people and companies, and tag them, similar to del.icio.us. I thought of
creating a seperate table for the tags, but then each person or contact
should be able to have an unlimited number of tags, created on-the-fly. How
could I organise that? The only way I could come up with is to create a
seperate table of tags, companies and people, and record each link between a
tag and a company or person seperately. Is there a better way?

Thanks for any answers,
Nico

You need a table of people (possibly a separate table of companies, I
don't know whether you want to treat "legal persons" as people or have
different attributes for people and companies); a table of Tags, with
one record for each valid tag (since I have no idea what a "tag"
contains I can't speak to what would be valid); and a "linker" table
TagsAssigned. The TagsAssigned table would have a PersonID (a link to
the primary key of the People table) and a Tag field (a link to the
primary key of the Tags table, which might be the tag itself).

For data entry you could have a Form based on the people table, with a
subform based on TagsAssigned; on the subform you could have a combo
box based on Tags. Use the combo's Not In List event procedure to add
a new tag if the desired tag doesn't already exist.

You don't need any additional information from the people/companies
table in the TagsAssigned table - the PersonID is all the link you
need.

John W. Vinson[MVP]