Questions on starting a database design

[burnished_dragon]

am a new user and not a programer or anything of the like. I have taken a
user course on Access. What I want to be able to do is have a contact
database for our company. I work for two accountants that are partners. I
figure on one database per partner and one for joint clients.
My main problem is that one accountant has condominiums as clients. Most of
the
condos have property mangagement companies. So you can have one property
managment company that have more than one of our clients as their clients.
The condo associations can change management companies.
What I want to be able to do is if the condo changes managment companies I
want to edit that also if the managment company changes address or name I
want to only have to edit it once and all the information for the condos
associated with that management company is updated.

basically
our client (condo) - one mangement company
one management company - many of our clients
also
Client (not condo) - many companies

 

[mscertified]

You will need one database not three, assuming you have a network that both
partners can access the same files. The database will need to be split so
both partners can use it simultaneously.
Your next step is to list all the data objects and arrange them into tables
and relationships such that the application requirements will be supported.
After that, you can list all the functions that the application needs to
perform and then design your queries and forms to support those needs.
You really need more than a 'user' course to design and build an
application; you aren't a user you are a developer.

Dorian

 

[burnished_dragon via AccessMonster.com]

Thank you for your answer
we are not networked and I more than likely will be the only one accessing
the datebase. I have some idea of how to make some of the table ( I can do
it in one database) it is figuring out the relationships and the joining
tables for many to many etc. Should I make the condo clients a separate
table from the regular clients? I need then to figure out how many separate
tables I would need. The thing that mess me up is the condos that are
clients and the management companys which are not clients but we deal with
them for the financial information etc.

You will need one database not three, assuming you have a network that both
partners can access the same files. The database will need to be split so
both partners can use it simultaneously.
Your next step is to list all the data objects and arrange them into tables
and relationships such that the application requirements will be supported.
After that, you can list all the functions that the application needs to
perform and then design your queries and forms to support those needs.
You really need more than a 'user' course to design and build an
application; you aren't a user you are a developer.

Dorian

am a new user and not a programer or anything of the like. I have taken a
user course on Access. What I want to be able to do is have a contact

[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]

also
Client (not condo) - many companies

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

It sounds like condo clients and other clients are two subclasses of the
clients class, and whenever I think about subclasses in database design, I'm
always reminded of Rebecca Riordan, who explains this kind of thing so much
better than I ever could. Here's a link to one of her explanations ...

http://groups.google.com/group/comp..._frm/thread/bb89b6732dce0b08/9d4cd8e679b44c7f

You can find more like that here ...

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=subclass&as_uauthors=Rebecca+Riordan

--
Brendan Reynolds
Access MVP

Thank you for your answer
we are not networked and I more than likely will be the only one accessing
the datebase. I have some idea of how to make some of the table ( I can
do
it in one database) it is figuring out the relationships and the joining
tables for many to many etc. Should I make the condo clients a separate
table from the regular clients? I need then to figure out how many
separate
tables I would need. The thing that mess me up is the condos that are
clients and the management companys which are not clients but we deal with
them for the financial information etc.

You will need one database not three, assuming you have a network that
both
partners can access the same files. The database will need to be split so
both partners can use it simultaneously.
Your next step is to list all the data objects and arrange them into
tables
and relationships such that the application requirements will be
supported.
After that, you can list all the functions that the application needs to
perform and then design your queries and forms to support those needs.
You really need more than a 'user' course to design and build an
application; you aren't a user you are a developer.

Dorian

am a new user and not a programer or anything of the like. I have
taken a
user course on Access. What I want to be able to do is have a contact

[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]

also
Client (not condo) - many companies