Another Table Error

[mabyn]

"You cannot add nor change a record because a related record is required in
table Attendees Old". "You cannot save this record at this time." The bad
news is that table was deleted. (Help?) I thought I was doing good by
"analyzing the table yesterday" and that changed some relationships. I don't
know where to go to try to fix this wrong.

 

[mabyn]

I closed my database down and when it came back up I see that Attendees_OLD
IS there. I guess that is good. Is there a way to do a check to see if I need
to rename it back to Attendees?

Please tell me anything I need to tell you about this file. I have a great
deal of data in it and if I can salvage it I will not tinker with "well
enough" again. I am scared to do anything to this particular database.

 

[BruceM]

I have from time to time looked at the results when Access analyzes tables,
and have concluded that Access rarely gets what is supposed to happen. In
order to get back on track (if you do not have a backup) you will need to
describe what your database does and how it was structured, and what you
hoped to fix or improve by turning Access loose on your design.

In any case, if you did not back it up before, do so now. During
development, as soon as something works as intended, back it up and continue
developing on a copy. I often make several backups in one day.

 

[mabyn]

Will back up after I write this. I "assumed" that the control was there to
clean up tables it "knew" were cumbersome. As a novice I have no idea if mine
are, or are not. So, I had no real reason to do it.

This database is for an Expo coming up shortly that keeps track of what
companies are registered, if they have paid their fees and filled in all
sorts of paperwork. I have numerous reports...like one for sales managers to
analyze what their sales force is doing, per Account Executive, Total
registrations, paid, etc. The error occurred when I was trying to enter a new
Company in the database.

Viewing the relationships I can see that my Attendees file is no longer
linked to anything. There is also another box that says Attendees_1 there
with no link. I don't see my Attendees_Old. I am confused.

I'm wondering if "all would be well" if I changed the name of Attendees_Old
back to Attendees? I will make a copy of this database before proceeding any
further but obviously need direction.

The original base of this file was EVENT MANAGEMENT template in Access.
Table 1 - Attendees (or whatever at this point)
Keeps Company Name, first name, last name, AE 1, AE 2, adress info, and
other company info. Has an AttendeeID
Table 2 - (Used to be Accessed from Table 1) Registration
AttendeeID, Event ID, and
Table 3 - (Used to be Accessed from Table 1) Payments
Table 4 - (Used to be Accessed from Table 1) Preview Invoice

 

[BruceM]

I have taken a look at the Event Management database. I downloaded it from
the Microsoft web site and immediately ran the table analyzer, which found
"problems" and "fixed" them by breaking the Events table into three tables,
creating a query named Events from those three tables, and renaming the
Events table Events_OLD. Absurdly (to me anyhow) it decided that a start
time of 9:00 and an end time of 5:00 for three events was repeated
information, so it made a table for that. It also made a table for
Locations, which probably should have been there in the first place, but for
some reason moved Employee ID to that table.

If you have not changed any of the data or design since making the changes
you should be able to undo them by deleting any queries that have taken over
the names of previous tables (that have since been renamed with an OLD
suffix), renaming the tables to their original names, and re-creating the
relationships. To see a table in the Relationships window, right click a
blank spot on the window and select Show Table. Drag a field from one table
to another to re-establish the relationship. Best suggestion is to download
the template again and use that as a guide.

The template has a number of elements that could turn out to be problems.
For instance, it uses lookup fields in the tables. I won't try to get into
the details of that, except to say they can cause mysterious problems with
queries and other attempts to filter and otherwise manipulate the data. It
may be OK if you do not add to the database, but could be a consideration as
your skills develop and you attempt modifications.

Since you are a self-identified novice you may benefit from some reading
about Access. This is a very good place to start:
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

This page contains more information, including the above link:
http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html

Of special interest at the moment see Tips for Casual Users. Also, check
out the Links at the bottom right side of the page.