tekbro
Mechanical
- Mar 24, 2008
- 3
I'm a new member to the site so first off, hello everyone! I appreciate all of the helpful advice and tips that I've found on eng-tips through the years.
My question may sound familiar to some of you so consider it a "nod" to the old thread781-92819 (now closed to replies).
I too, am trying to build a **simple** drawing database for a product line that I'm working on. It will only reference about 3000 drawings before all is said and done.
Currently, we're listing our vendor drawings as a flat-file spreadsheet-just one big table. From a convenience standpoint, this is great. You just open the file and type away. From a configuration management and data integrity standpoint, it is well-potentially disastrous. We've been lucky so far.
I've been asked to make our spreadsheet more functional and more secure, but without spending any money or paying for IT development time. Because I've been cursed with a few Access training courses (and was stupid enough to tell someone), I am the unlucky so & so that gets to accomplish all of this.
So, we are tracking the usual suspects in our drawing table like: Drawing Number, Title, vendor CAGE code, revision, revision date, release status, customer approval record, approval date, system, cognizant engineer, etc.
Starting at the top, I immediately began thinking of how to normalize my tables, and reduce duplicate data as much as possible. Upon doing this, I noticed an immediate problem:
To normalize my table, I think I should separate my drawing data and my revision data. But I also need to maintain a revision HISTORY of each drawing for control purposes. I'm not sure how or where to store all the old revisions in a drawing revision field, especially when the field may have to contain several values. And then, how do I make the user aware of any previous revisions-subforms and subreports?
I'm pretty sure I know what I want this database to "look" like, but telling MS Access how to give it to me is turning out to be the hard part! Please help...
My question may sound familiar to some of you so consider it a "nod" to the old thread781-92819 (now closed to replies).
I too, am trying to build a **simple** drawing database for a product line that I'm working on. It will only reference about 3000 drawings before all is said and done.
Currently, we're listing our vendor drawings as a flat-file spreadsheet-just one big table. From a convenience standpoint, this is great. You just open the file and type away. From a configuration management and data integrity standpoint, it is well-potentially disastrous. We've been lucky so far.
I've been asked to make our spreadsheet more functional and more secure, but without spending any money or paying for IT development time. Because I've been cursed with a few Access training courses (and was stupid enough to tell someone), I am the unlucky so & so that gets to accomplish all of this.
So, we are tracking the usual suspects in our drawing table like: Drawing Number, Title, vendor CAGE code, revision, revision date, release status, customer approval record, approval date, system, cognizant engineer, etc.
Starting at the top, I immediately began thinking of how to normalize my tables, and reduce duplicate data as much as possible. Upon doing this, I noticed an immediate problem:
To normalize my table, I think I should separate my drawing data and my revision data. But I also need to maintain a revision HISTORY of each drawing for control purposes. I'm not sure how or where to store all the old revisions in a drawing revision field, especially when the field may have to contain several values. And then, how do I make the user aware of any previous revisions-subforms and subreports?
I'm pretty sure I know what I want this database to "look" like, but telling MS Access how to give it to me is turning out to be the hard part! Please help...