order of items in dropdown combo box

[Ashley]

Hello, I have a combo box within which I would like to have a list of reasons
for absenteeism of employees. They are in their own table called "reasons".
The only thing in this table is a list of 8 possible reasons why a person
would be absent. I keep trying to change the order of the items to put the
most-used reason first, etc... but it automatically changes itself back to
alphabetical order. Is there any way to change this?

 

[John W. Vinson]

Hello, I have a combo box within which I would like to have a list of reasons
for absenteeism of employees. They are in their own table called "reasons".
The only thing in this table is a list of 8 possible reasons why a person
would be absent. I keep trying to change the order of the items to put the
most-used reason first, etc... but it automatically changes itself back to
alphabetical order. Is there any way to change this?

Yes. Include a SortOrder field in the table of reasons; fill it with numbers
like 10, 20, 30, ..., 80 (to allow for addition of new reasons). Base the
combo box on a Query sorting by this field.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

You'll probably need to add a field to the other table to rack and stack the
reasons in an order that you want. Then sort on that field.

However, I much perfer things in alphabetical order myself. You could make
the most common reason the default value. Just a thought.

 

[Armen Stein]

However, I much perfer things in alphabetical order myself. You could make
the most common reason the default value. Just a thought.

That's true - the user may expect them in alphabetical order and be
confused by the other sequencing, especially if the sequence number
isn't shown in the dropdown list.

But even if the alphabetical order isn't used, the user will still be
able to start typing and get matching entries to fill in.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com