Creating a search "engine" in Access

[Ratters]

I want to be able to find a record in an Access database by opening up a form
(in the same database) and entering variable data on that form (drop down or
free text) to search by - say date plus location on one search; customer name
and product on a different search....a kind of "search engine" really for the
whole database. People need to be able to have an easy means of searching
the database without knowing anything about filters or queries (it's for
non-computer people).

The database at the moment is in Office 2003. I have looked through the
On-line help but don't know if I am trying to do something that is just not
possible.

Thanks for your help and guidance.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

I can't tell from your description, but it sounds like you want your users
to be able to search for anything anywhere. If so, this is somewhat at odds
with the notion of a well-normalized relational database design. In fact,
you could expect your users to understand very little about relational
database design, so you wouldn't really want to be forcing them to be
searching "every closet" for a particular piece of data.

If you want folks to find things, you could set up a query that joins your
(well-normalized) tables into what appears to be a large "flat file". Your
users could search that without having to dig about in each of the tables.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP