Starting Advice

[Cranky]

Hi

I'm still pretty new to Access but have always found the best way for
me to learn is to do projects and look at the problems raised.

I am trying to put together a database for my office Reception stats.

What I have is 5 different departments who receive customers. Each
working day is divided into 5 timebands:

0830 - 1000
1001 - 1200
1201 - 1430
1431 - 1600
1600 - 1715

What we record is the number of visits per department, per timeband. We
also record how many visitors waited over 15 minutes to be seen, and
how many waited over 30 minutes to be seen. For report purposes, each
day would also need a callers' total per team, per timeband, per
'waiting time' band.

My original thought was to have one table covering everything, although
it's not pretty

So:

Is a single table not ideal - what is the best way to do this? There
are effectively 15 inputs per team, per day (3 waiting times over 5
time bands). Is it worth having a single table with all 75 input boxes
on a form, or an individual table for each team?

Also, I can't get a running total to work. I posted a message to
another group a while back, but was confused by the reply (I did try to
clarify, but got no reply, mainly down to me _seeming_ dismissive of
the answer, I think), though what I did pick up is that a good table
design is the key to it.

And that's where I fall at the first hurdle.

Thanks in advance for any help.

C

 

[KARL DEWEY]

It seems that you are thinking spreadsheet and not database. The structure
below will collect your data.

VisitID – Autonumber – primary key
Dept – text
U-Ticket – number - integer
ARR – Datetime
Seen – Datetime
CMTs - text

Use a form the shows those waiting and a blank record to enter new arrivals.
Have ARR & Seen on the form to enter current date-time on double click.
Refresh the screen when visitor is seen.

Use queries to extract the data.