Copying and pasting data

[Averil Pretty]

Hi there,

There is possibly a simple solution to my query but I
can't for the life of me work it out.

I have a contact database that has all company info (as
usual) but it also has a linked table for "branches" under
that company. So for example Company XYZ may have 6
branches.

What I would like to do is be able to make a branch
a "Company" in it's own right when they become an active
client (this is because the Company table has a load more
info that can be added than the Branch table including
projects, tasks and time sheets). I'd like to transfer
the values over.

In addition, the Company tables primary key is an
AutoNumber, and the "Company Name" cannot be a duplicate
so I don't know how to get around this problem as most
Branches of Companies tend to have the same name as the
company. Perhaps when copying the field over we can make
the new "Company Name" "Company Name (Suburb)" like
Company XYZ (St Kilda)???

I really appreciate any assistance and apologise if this
has been asked before (I did do a search but found nothing
that can help me).

Thanks in advance.

Averil

 

[Ken Snell]

You certainly can name the branch company whatever you want to name it if
you put its records in the company table. Perhaps I'm not understanding what
the problem is?

What do you think won't work? or will cause an error with what you wish to
do?

I do think that you may be overcomplicating your setup by having branches in
a separate table from the companies; you could put the branches into the
company table and use a field that shows which company each branch is
related to (the autonumber value of the company record, for example).

 

[Averil Pretty]

Hi Ken,

Thank you for your response. Maybe I didn't explain
myself properly!

Each Company has loads of fields which help us with
marketing efforts, project planning etc., and as a by-
product of that, each Company has a linked table of
branches associated with that Company. Each Branch has
info about names, address, numbers, emails etc so I put
these in a table linked to the Company Name.

Often if a parent company doesn't come on board with our
proposal, some of the individual branches will, so I would
like to make the branches individual clients so we can use
the project functions of the database.

My database is still a bit crude but it works OK for
having being built by someone who knows jack all about
Access (said someone came top of her year in computer
studies at school without ever having a computer at home!)

All that aside, I still need help! Perhaps I can
privately email you the file??? My email is
(e-mail address removed).

I try to help this newsgroup where I can... generally the
Excel region so I am not one of those one offs that come
for help then leave so I really appreciate your assistance.

Thanks in advance.

Averil

 

[Ken Snell]

Your original explanation was fine. I still recommend that you put the
branches in the "Company" table, and then add a field to that table (call it
ParentCompanyID), and put into that field the CompanyID of the company in
the table that is the parent of the branch.

This will allow you to have branches and that the branches already are in
the table where they can be clients too.

If this just isn't what you want to use, then please give me a bit more info
about what is the concern about renaming the company branch when it becomes
a client. Perhaps you just need to add another field in place of the one
that "can't be duplicated" as a company name, and use this new field as a
nonunique field in place of the one that has the real company name in it.
But, using a CompanyID field as the primary key (can't be duplicated) would
do the same thing.

Can you post the table structure info (fieldnames, etc. for each table)?