Yoric,

Basically, you need an inventory management system. Unfortunately, I have
not seen a Data Model for one but there some other here that might help with
*how to store your data*...

http://www.databasedev.co.uk/data_models.html

One thing to be careful of using Reserved Words for any field or table
names, to help with that here's a list of all those words...

http://allenbrowne.com/Ap****ueBadWord.html

You didn't mention which version Access but Access 2007 has an inventory
template you could start with and modify to suit your needs.

Now, as to where to start... you didn't mention how much experience you have
with Access, so I am going to suggest the beginning...

Jeff Conrad's resources page...
http://www.accessmvp.com/JConrad/acc...resources.html

The Access Web resources page...
http://www.mvps.org/access/resources/index.html

A free tutorial written by Crystal (MS Access MVP)...
http://allenbrowne.com/casu-22.html

MVP Allen Browne's tutorials...
http://allenbrowne.com/links.html#Tutorials

--
Gina Whipp
2010 Microsoft MVP (Access)

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

"Yoric" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
I am doing a project to get started on Access. I am a tinkerer, and have a
lab and garage full of storage boxes, component chests, tackle boxes,
plastic
tubs and such, on shelves, in cupboards and on the floor. Each receptacle,
be
it a large plastic tub, or a single drawer of a 6x5 component chest has
components in it. There may be more than one, and more than one type of
component in each receptacle. Each receptacle has a location (room),
position
(shelf, floor) and a unique id. A receptacle is always singular, but may be
a
single carton, or a drawer within a multi-drawer chest. There may be several
chests, some with 5x6 drawers, some with 8x4 drawers etc.
Components each have attributes: Description, part #, genre, image,
datasheet, # on hand, etc. A single type of component may have 1, 2 or more
genres (OPTO, Discrete, Semiconductor). There may be the same type of
component in different receptacles (Part of the reason for this project is
to
gather them and consolidate them!)
Thus far, I have created tables for ReceptacleType (18 possibilities),
Location(4 possible rooms), Component (20 fields incl location, receptacle
type, #on hand, but mainly just attributes etc). I also have a Receptacle
table which is the uniqueid for every single receptacle, its type, location,
and component list field.
I am struggling in several areas:
1) I am not sure how to build the relationships, such that some receptacles
have 'parents' or hierarchy and some do not. For example, a drawer within a
chest of 20, or a single large cardboard box.
2) How to construct forms that will change 'downstream' fields, dependent
upon a certain choice made in a combo box. Say if I select a chest drawer, a
field will open to describe which chest
3) How to set up forms for the most efficient data entry.

I envisage visiting each receptacle with my laptop, entering the list of
components in it (briefly), the location of the receptacle, physically
labelling the receptacle with the uniqueid sticker, then moving to the next.
Once that is done, I would go to each component, and flesh out the data for
the attributes as necessary. Later on, it would be great to report all the
'OPTO' components, so I could gather them all up and consolidate them into
grouped, or adjacent receptacles, updating the db as I did so.
An important attribute for each component would be a synonym field, so I
could query LED, led, LEDS, Light Emitting Diodes and find all of the
relevant records.

Frankly, any advice, especially on where to begin, would be most
appreciated!

Thanks in anticipation,
Roy.