Using Several workbooks....

[E Pluribus Unum]

I have a question regarding using several workbooks to handle a job.
I am tracking clients (in this case inmates in a jail). I have a set
of core data that I call the "Master List". It contains the
following:

Inmate Name
Inmate NUmber
Living Unit
Admit Date
Release Date
Classification
Needs Assessment

Right now I have all departments running off the one workbook. After
the first seven "Core Data" columns, I have other stuff... like 12
columns of programming (drugs and alcohol, violence prevention...
etc...) and then 6 more miscellaneous columns and finally several
columns for the inmate earnings (wage rate, wage code, day of week X7,
and total wages.)

I have tried breaking out the cored data from the other departments.
I figure I could do with about three differenct sheets.... provided
they could all draw the core data from one master list. I have tried
that, but the problem is that once I sort that master list, everyone
else is screwed. The wage table, for example, gets totally messed up
as soon as I sort becuase obviously the wages no longer match the
right inmate.

I have been reading all the posts here for the past month, and I am
convinced there is likely a way to do this. I release and intake
about 50 inmates a day ... so I always have a need to be able to sort
them.

Can anyone suggest a methodology for this?

TIA
Nick.

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

E,

You pretty much need to use VLOOKUPs to get information from one list in
another in Excel tables. You may find Access a better platform for this
database application.