Help! Calendar in table?

[Highlands Webmaster]

Hi all,

I'm trying to determine if there is a way to get Access to put a
calendar (monthly, yearly, etc) into a table, or however else Access may
create one, and then see what are the values for fields in another table for
a given date.

Can anyone out there offer some suggestions on where to start?


Thanks

 

[Bas Cost Budde]

Hi all,

I'm trying to determine if there is a way to get Access to put a
calendar (monthly, yearly, etc) into a table, or however else Access may
create one, and then see what are the values for fields in another table for
a given date.

My site, articles:Range, may provide ideas on how to go about date ranges.

If you want to see just the values in some table for *one* given date,
an uncomplicated query would do.

Are you thinking of some planner application?

 

[Highlands Webmaster]

Hi Bas,

Thanks for the input. I am in fact trying to design a system almost
exactly like that in your example. Although I am very comfortable with most
computing aspects I am nearly a complete novice to databases. So that I do
not take yours, or anyone else's, time on the news group, can you (or
anyone) out there recommend an introductory text, website, faq, etc.,
written for someone who is already computer savvy?

Thanks again,
Paul

 

[Bas Cost Budde]

Hi Bas,

Thanks for the input. I am in fact trying to design a system almost
exactly like that in your example. Although I am very comfortable with most
computing aspects I am nearly a complete novice to databases. So that I do
not take yours, or anyone else's, time on the news group, can you (or
anyone) out there recommend an introductory text, website, faq, etc.,
written for someone who is already computer savvy?

No; maybe someone else; but I do appreciate some discussion as I am on
the same sort of project now. I am well versed in databases, so I can at
least warn you for some extra work a novice is bound to try to do
himself. Databases can do a lot for you.

<loud> Hello? Anybody (else) who is interested in having the discussion
publicly? <normal> Otherwise I suggest we carry it over email.

 

[Highlands Webmaster]

Bas,

Thanks! You are most benevolent. Indeed, if no one else out there has an
interest in discussing this within the forum, I would greatly appreciate
corresponding via email.

Paul

 

[Tim Ferguson]

Thanks! You are most benevolent. Indeed, if no one else out there
has an
interest in discussing this within the forum, I would greatly
appreciate corresponding via email.

I have to confess that I did not understand what the OP was looking for. I
don't understand what you mean by "put a calendar in a table"... tables
contain fields, which contain individual items of information. A calendar
is a page of numbers.

At first I thought you might be getting at a DateTime Picker control
(<http://www.mvps.org/ccrp/>) but of course that lives on a form, not in a
table.

I also wondered if you were trying design some kind of TimeSlot-Scheduler,
but without any more information about what kind of time slots and what
kind of things are going into them, it's not really possible to add any
more.

Sometimes, silence means not that nobody is listening, but that nobody has
any idea about what is wanted.

All the best


Tim F

 

[Highlands Webmaster]

I have to confess that I did not understand what the OP was looking for. I
don't understand what you mean by "put a calendar in a table"... tables
contain fields, which contain individual items of information. A calendar
is a page of numbers.

My apologies for the somewhat muddy original post. What I was mostly
looking for was some sort of way to automatically create unique date entries
in a form field "date" for several years without having to enter them
manually. That is sequential dates, including all dates.

At first I thought you might be getting at a DateTime Picker control
(<http://www.mvps.org/ccrp/>) but of course that lives on a form, not in a
table.

I also wondered if you were trying design some kind of TimeSlot-Scheduler,
but without any more information about what kind of time slots and what
kind of things are going into them, it's not really possible to add any
more.

I think this may be closer, so permit me to explain my ultimate goal. I
volunteer for a non-profit nature preserve. Some of the land acquired by the
organization has had buildings on it. Rather than taking all of them down,
some buildings have been turned into overnight lodging facilities so donors
can come and see what their donations are producing, etc., etc.

What we would now like is a system that allows tracking and entry of
reservations. Since the lodges have individual live-in intern caretakers and
they are all several miles distant from one another, having a web interface
seems the most logical idea. And of course since we are a small non-profit,
budget is a major consideration. We already own a license for Acess 2000,
but simply do not have the funds to be spending on new software or
outsourcing of this little project. Hence, we would like to employ the
resources we have already, which does not seem entirely unreasonable as we
only have five lodges.

As for details, you can probably guess what would be entailed: Guest
info, check-in & out times and dates, whether meals are desired (we are
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy out in the woods), etc. And of course, the fun part,
matching folks making reservations with those who have made donations using
our donors database. As a bonus, we would love for potential guests looking
at the organization's website to be able to inquire about room availability
without having to call.

Naturally, all suggestions, including something more appropriate than
Access, are welcome. My training is actually in computational physics &
chemistry, not exactly business applications. I am simply the volunteer most
knowledgable of computers at the moment, so I was asked to consider this
project. And work with it I shall, with the hope that folks out there in the
Access design community my have some helpful input.

Thanks to all!
Paul

 

[Tim Ferguson]

As for details, you can probably guess what would be entailed:
Guest
info, check-in & out times and dates, whether meals are desired (we
are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy out in the woods), etc. And of course, the
fun part, matching folks making reservations with those who have made
donations using our donors database. As a bonus, we would love for
potential guests looking at the organization's website to be able to
inquire about room availability without having to call.

Okay: all this looks do-able, even though I have not had much personal
experience with with scheduling apps. The underlying design tends to go,
not so much with a-record-for-every-day, but with a record for each
booking; so that a new booking is checked against overlaps with other
bookings, and availablity is checked against the start- and end- dates.

Naturally, all suggestions, including something more appropriate
than
Access, are welcome. My training is actually in computational physics
& chemistry, not exactly business applications.

Well, what you are suggesting is not going to be trivial, but certainly can
be done. What I do wonder, though, is whether, as a learner, your time
would not be better spent computing the physics and looking round for an
off the shelf sheduling system. Things like Groupwise (possibly Outlook
too) can be got to do this stuff, and I know that GW has a web interface
too, and I would guess that Outlook does too. Again, I stress that I have
never had to set this stuff up: I've only seen it from a user perspective.
I am mindful that you have set yourself up for a steep learning curve in
Jet database design and for some fancy www programming. I don't for a
minute doubt your ability or commitment, but it might be a tall order if
there is a time constraint as well.

Sorry: this sounds terribly negative and I did not mean it to, but I wanted
to offer some perspective about the type of project you are taking on. If
you are working in a university-type context, are there IT bodies you can
attach to for the basic grounding? These NGs work well for specific
questions, but less so for handholding all the way through a design
process.

Best wishes


Tim F

 

[Duane Hookom]

You might want to browse through the thread in teh GettingStarted NG
"Scheduling database: basic data structure?" by James Gifford on 2/25. The
is a discussion and code on creating a dates table as well as some
references to other resources.