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Hostel Database Setup



 
 
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  #31  
Old July 24th, 2006, 06:08 PM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
mnature
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 67
Default Hostel Database Setup

There is some professional software that already exists. I googled on
"hostel software" and these were on the first page. I chose them because
they both seem to have demo versions. Even if you have someone program a
database for you, it is good to have some standard to judge it by. Also, you
may find they have some functionality that would be nice, other than just for
tracking your clients.

http://www.hotel-software.com/

http://www.dustysoftware.co.nz/



  #32  
Old July 24th, 2006, 06:19 PM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
Amy Blankenship
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Posts: 539
Default Hostel Database Setup

If you're of the opinion that database design via forum is unwise, then
perhaps your best bet is to unsubscribe from a forum where that is the
purpose.

"Craig Alexander Morrison" wrote in
message ...
I am of the "published" opinion the database design by email is dangerous
if not actually irresponsible.

I am also quite happy to point out when someone is giving information that
will harm a design, such as your lack of measures, which I had initially
only suspected, to prevent data duplication and endanger integrity and
consistency.

I have since had to correct a series of further errors from you and me
(g).


--
Slainte

Craig Alexander Morrison
Crawbridge Data (Scotland) Limited

"Amy Blankenship" wrote in message
...

"Craig Alexander Morrison" wrote in
message ...
Gees Louise. All she wants to do is track what countries her clients
are from...

Well no what the OP actually wants is....

To present real and true financial and marketing data to perspective
buyers
of my business.
To answer my guests questions, eg, "How many guests have you had?"
"What
country are the majority of your guests from?" "How many Swiss visitors
have
you had?" "Are most of your guests under 30?" etc.

Did you read that, I think the OP is more concerned about data
consistency than you are.


And I think you're not at all concerned about actually answering Andrea's
question. If you were, you would address her and her question rather
than expending a lot of energy trying to demonstrate that I gave her a
wrong answer.

If you are SO concerned for her and her data integrity, post a solution
she can use rather than nitpicking at mine. Otherwise stay out of the
way so I can direct my energy to helping her fine tune rather than
responding to your posts which have ZERO point in the context of this
thread other than to hear yourself talk.





  #33  
Old July 25th, 2006, 08:37 AM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
Craig Alexander Morrison
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Posts: 88
Default Hostel Database Setup

If you're of the opinion that database design via forum is unwise, then
perhaps your best bet is to unsubscribe from a forum where that is the
purpose.


While people like you are giving advice on database design I hope that many
will point out your amateur errors and profound lack of knowledge. I would
have though with such a profound lack of knowledge you may wish to educate
yourself, perhaps, and sadly, not.

Learn from good "non-product" specific books about relational database
design not from dodgy websites. Check the points I raised with you in these
books and see if I am wrong.

You seemed more concerned with my motives, well my motives are transparent I
wanted to correct serious errors in the advice you were giving. I will be
around from time to time and will happily criticise points that are just
plain wrong. I gave you the benefit of the doubt on my first post, I have no
doubts about you at all now.

Relational Data Analysis requires a thorough understanding of the problem
domain not some person making wild assumptions like you have done on this
thread. Database Design by email is dangerous because you have to ensure
that the Client is disclosing all the relevant information, they may not
know that they are not. The collection of sources for the RDA process will
throw up a lot of questions that the skilled developer will ask of the
Client.

You do not have appear to have the necessary rigour to be advising people
about database designs. Throughout this thread you have failed to address a
series of salient points, I had hoped you had accepted them, but it would
appear you are not equipped to argue your point not that it would have made
sense anyway as you are wrong, and I only looked at one table and you sadly
confirmed that you would have taken no steps to void data duplication and
cared little for the data integrity and consistency of the database.

Your failings can be corrected with a little bit of education, I hope you
will consider this.

As I said at the beginning I do not want to get into the Surrogate vs
Natural Key debate, but you will find that most of the people who do
advocate the use of Surrogate Keys (in all tables) will also ensure that the
Natural Key (when available) is implemented as a Unique Non-Null Index.

--
Slainte

Craig Alexander Morrison
Crawbridge Data (Scotland) Limited

"Amy Blankenship" wrote in message
...



  #34  
Old July 25th, 2006, 08:44 AM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
Jamie Collins
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Posts: 1,705
Default Hostel Database Setup


Amy Blankenship wrote:
That's the point I was trying to make when I said, "Another approach
could be to record their passport number, with perhaps a different
identiifer for locals."


That's one way to do it. What if someone changes his/her citizenship :-)?


As well as geography, nationality can be complicated by issues of
ethnic origin, culture and politics. That's why I suggested the OP
could use country of permanent residence.

The same person can hold more than one passport, of course.

It's all about the level of trust e.g. sometimes the police are content
to take your name and address, other times they want to see your
driving licence and in more extreme cases they want fingerprints and
DNA samples.

Jamie.

--

  #35  
Old July 25th, 2006, 06:46 PM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
Amy Blankenship
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 539
Default Hostel Database Setup

And then how do you tell Jean Dupont of Paris from Jean DuPont of Dijon?

"Jamie Collins" wrote in message
oups.com...

Amy Blankenship wrote:
That's the point I was trying to make when I said, "Another approach
could be to record their passport number, with perhaps a different
identiifer for locals."


That's one way to do it. What if someone changes his/her citizenship
:-)?


As well as geography, nationality can be complicated by issues of
ethnic origin, culture and politics. That's why I suggested the OP
could use country of permanent residence.

The same person can hold more than one passport, of course.

It's all about the level of trust e.g. sometimes the police are content
to take your name and address, other times they want to see your
driving licence and in more extreme cases they want fingerprints and
DNA samples.

Jamie.

--



  #36  
Old July 26th, 2006, 08:33 AM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
Jamie Collins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,705
Default Hostel Database Setup


Amy Blankenship wrote:
how do you tell Jean Dupont of Paris from Jean DuPont of Dijon?


A more pertinent question might be, how do you know that Jean Dupont/US
passport number x/French is not the same person as Jean Dupont/EU
passport number y/French? To a hotelier trying their best to determine
how many individuals pass through their doors, counting individual
passports is probably good enough.

The canny hotelier may look the client straight in the eye, ask them if
they've stayed there before and monitor their body language. The US
immigration services, on the other hand, may be looking into a person's
eye to perform a retina scan... As I say, it comes down to the required
level of trust.

Jamie.

--

  #37  
Old July 26th, 2006, 04:01 PM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
andreainpanama
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 40
Default Hostel Database Setup

Well, this postings seems to have caused quite a stir....36 responses and
counting!!!...but yet most of the stuff is going right over my head, and as a
few of you commented...I didn't want my posting to become the brunt of a
theoretical battle!

After continuing my research, I am now thinking that perhaps my design
problems might be resolved by making my Guest Info and Bookings Table, many
to many relationship. Eg, 1 room can have more than one guest at any given
time and
1 guest can have many different bookings in the course of any given time.

If the consensus is yes, I should have many to many, are there any
suggestions as to how I can manipulate my existing setup to fit a new one?
Please keep the answers easy, I am a little dislexic when it comes to all
this theory and new vocabulary.

If you prefer, I can start a new post with my new question.

Thanks so much!


"andreainpanama" wrote:

Thanks to all of you for all of your help.

I have a small backpackers hostel and I am currently working on a database
to help me keep track of all of my guests.

These are the two basic design issues that I am running into.

Issue 1. Sometimes, there are 2 or 3 guests staying to gether in a private
room (as opposed to individuals staying in dorm beds which are always
registered separately). Since we rent the private rooms by the room, groups
are considered to be one booking and one stay in one room, even though there
are three individuals. I want to keep track not only of the guest that is
the official guest in my register (the one who pays for the room), but the 2
people who are accompanying him. Why? Because I a) want to know how many
different individuals have walked through my doors b) I want to know the
nationalities of every individual and c) Many times one of the people who
have stayed as a friend of a guest in a private room, will come back on their
own a few days later, and then they might become the paying guest or an
individual in a dorm. Therefore, I want a way that every single person has a
client ID number.

I have managed to do this rather haphazardly...by having a table with the
following fields,

MAIN GUEST 1(TITLE)
clientid1
lastname1
firstname1
nationality1
etc1
FRIEND2 (TITLE)
clientid2
lastname2
firstname2
nationality2
etc2
FRIEND 3 (TITLE)
clientid3
lastname3
firstname3
nationality3
etc3

And I just go in and manually assign a number to each person. Tried using
subforms, could't get them to work. Didn't use autonumbers because I wasn't
sure how to deal with the following Issue 2 below.....

Issue 2. Repeat Bookings. I currently have a booking table which allows
each guest to have a booking with dates, prices, room choice, etc. How do I
deal with repeat bookings of the same person? How do I structure tables and
forms to deal with the infinite amount of booking data that might apply to
one guest since I have no idea if a person will come back 0 times, or 3 times
or 65 times, or if they will be in the same room the next night, etc. How do
I limit my table and form size? How can I pull up a client number say 55,
and then enter new booking records? Should I do this with individual booking
tables? And once again, are my problems solve with autonumbers?


Finally, let me explain why I want this data...

To present real and true financial and marketing data to perspective buyers
of my business.
To answer my guests questions, eg, "How many guests have you had?" "What
country are the majority of your guests from?" "How many Swiss visitors have
you had?" "Are most of your guests under 30?" etc.


I would really appreciate someone's opinions.


(PS, I am a relative newbie, and know nothing about programming language.)

AndreainPanama

you can see my webpage at www.purplehousehostel.com






 




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