Lookup field and Relationships

[jrav]

I am having trouble understanding a design concept. I am setting up an
employee database for the first time. At issue is how to handle the actions
entered into a log table. I have a table for employee's info, and log table
that i am using to keep track of actions performed on employees, i.e. new
hire, raise, termination, etc. It seems appropriate to have the log table
include a FK for an actions table with all of the possible actions.

in the design view of the log table, i can see that the action field is set
as a combo box with a row source of the actions table PK, yet I don't see a
relationship in the relationships view. Is this a problem? I tried dragging
the field over to establish the relationship, but the field properties don't
match. (log table = text) Changing the data type to number wants to delete
all of the entries. So it seems like I should do an update query to change
the text to the code of the FK from the actions table to create the
relationship.

Bottom line, why is there no relationship, and does it matter long term?

thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

It sounds like you are describing trying to use the "lookup field" data type
in an Access table. If so, then you are re-discovering reasons why this is
not a good idea.

For one thing, as you point out, it's hard to spot the relationships.

For another, the field in the table displays the looked-up value, but it is
actually storing the key value.

For yet another, working directly in the table like this is a mistake. If
you only had a spreadsheet, you'd use it ... but Access only stores data in
tables. You use Access forms to add/edit data because forms provide much
more control.

More info, please...

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

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[KARL DEWEY]

i can see that the action field is set as a combo box with a row source of
the actions table PK, yet I don't see a relationship in the relationships
view. Is this a problem?
Yes. You are attempting to use a lookup field in the table -- do not do
that.
tblEmployee --
EmpID - Primary key
FName
LName
Gender
DOB
etc

tblActions --
ActionID - Primary key
Type -

tblEmpActions --
EmpActionID - Primary key
EmpID - foreign key
ActionID - foreign key
ActionDate -
InitiatedBy -
EndDate -
etc

Set a one-to-many relationship between the tblEmployee & tblEmpActions and
tblActions & tblEmpActions selecting Referential Integerity and Cascade
Update.
Use a form/subform with Master/Child links set on the EmpID. Use a combo to
select action Type and the ActionID bound to the tblEmpActions table.