Value Tracking....

[ParityOdd]

I'm somewhat new to Access, I have a location text box, which stores
an items location, I am looking to see if it is possible to track where
an item has been in the past.

I am assuming this is possible by using the onChange to execute a macro
that would take the current value then append it to the bottom of a
memo box that would contain the history of every location that has been
used in the text box. Due to my lack of access knowledge and tight
deadline I was hoping some would be able to help out with pointing me
in the right direction.

 

[Steve Schapel]

Parity,

You could write these values to the end of a memo field, as you say. If
you wait for Access 2007, this functionality comes "out of the box" .
You wouldn't use a Change event. Probably Before Update event would
be more applicable. And you would use a SetValue action in your macro.

However, there are some limitations with this approach, which should be
considered first. If you will ever need to use this historical data, it
is likely that any filtering or sorting or grouping or summarising or
counting etc of items in locations, will be difficult on the basis of
trying to get Access to track down information which is enmeshed within
an agglomeration of data in a memo field. It would be much better to
keep the data atomically. This would mean a separate table, let's say
it would be named something like LocationHistory, which would therefore
be in a many-to-one relationship with your Items table. And every time
an item's location changes, it amounts to the entry of a new record in
this table, probably also with a date field. On the basis of this, it
is very simple to see the item's current location, but also to work
effectively with the tracking of location movement.